Christmas Continuum
by Baileys
Summary: A series of one-shots covering every Christmas since Tony joined NCIS. Gibbs & Tony Father/Son, Team, Friendship, Family, hopefully some Humour, Angst and of course fluff - it's Christmas themed after all;)
1. 2001

A/N: So this is the new series I promised. This year is Tony DiNozzo's 13th year with NCIS, and wouldn't you know it, as of Tuesday (today) it's 13 weeks until Christmas so… you see where I'm going with this? I'm posting a Christmas one-shot every week for each and every Christmas Tony has celebrated with Gibbs 'n co, ending with a season 11 tag on Christmas eve. So if you like the idea keep the reviews and things coming because I'll certainly need the encouragement to work to these deadlines! And for those who asked I still have the "elevator story" in writing, only at the moment I'm thinking of making it a much longer piece and don't want to post the first few chapters before I'm sure. I'll keep you updated though.

Also big thanks to all those who left a review/faved 'Time well spent' as Abby would say _I'm_ _hugging you all in my mind right now _;)

.

_"**con·tin·u·um**_

_/kənˈtinyo͞oəm/_

_Noun_

_A continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct."_

_._

Pre-season: Tony's first NCIS Christmas, 2001

"Happy Christmas Abby!"

Abby drops her tinsel part way through decorating her beloved major mas-spec and spins around, jumping on her new found Christmas cohort with a delighted scream.

"Woe," Tony exclaims, exaggerating falling under her weight.

She drops and delivers a solid punch to his shoulder, which she notices too late just so happens to be supported in a sling under his jacket.

"What did you do this time?" Is her stern-motherly response to his very real cry of pain.

In response Tony gives her the doe eyes that only come out whenever he wants sympathy and, damn him, she can't stay even _fake_ mad at him when he turns those puppies on her. Completely sucked in her mock anger melts away as quickly as snow in springtime and she proceeds to give him the attention he so desires.

"Oh my poor baby," Abby coo's extra sappily while stroking his hair, causing a teasing grin to almost split his face in two when she gives him another massive, yet much gentler, hug.

"He got _a splinte_r_!_" Gibbs barks, walking in and head-slapping Tony without pause, coming to an expectant standstill in front of her plasma.

"From the crate that got hit by a bullet boss, it's the same thing." Tony whines. Gibbs glares. "Or not"

Smirking at his cowardly back peddling Abby drops Tony, who immediately looks bereft without her embrace and bounces over to stand in front of Gibbs.

"What you brought me Gibbs?" She demands with enthusiasm, filled with the joys of the season. Christmas Eve is the bestest day to be at work as far as Abby's concerned, because nothing, nothing can make this day a bad one.

"Bullet fragments." He hangs the evidence bag in the air between them, "what you got _for me_?"

"I have DNA that proves your petty officer was definitely doing something hinky in the laundry room," she winks, enjoying the mild discomfort on the boss man's face that appears whenever she mentions anything to do with sex.

"Thanks Abs," he says with a sly grin, giving her his usual peck on the cheek before walking away.

"Wait! Didn't you bring me anything else?" She asks, eyes sparkling.

Gibbs stops, turns and smiles, nodding at her desk where sits a Caf-Pow with a Christmas bow on it. Abby gins with delight while Tony stands in the background looking sad again. Gibbs almost walks right passed him, but stops at his side producing from his pocket a vending machine chocolate bar, one of Tony's favourites, and dangles it only inches in front of his face.

Tony bites back a beaming smile, "What, no bow?"

Gibbs glares.

Tony's fingers hesitantly brush against Gibbs' as he takes the chocolate, "I don't need a bow."

"Sure you don't."

Tony ducks his head, ripping into the wrapper and Gibbs grins when he thinks he can't see him, but Abby does and they share the smile together.

.

Gibbs walks out of the lab and Tony runs after him, chocolate bar half open and melting in his hand.

"Boss what you doing for Christmas?" He catches him just in time, squeezing through the doors just as they close and before Gibbs punches the button to take them back up to the bullpen.

"I don't do Christmas." He growls as the elevator carries them up through the building to third floor, even that small sensation being enough to give Tony a belly-flip.

"No?" Tony looks surprised, covering it with a nervous smile, "Everyone does Christmas."

"Joviah witnesses don't." Gibbs says straight, gaze never moving from facing the doors.

"Didn't know you were religious boss…" He quickly catches on. "You're not, funny boss… no really what you doing for Christmas?"

Gibbs turns slightly to face him, sighing out his aspiration. He looks like he might say something else, something that isn't designed to bite Tony's head off or merely shut him up, but then the doors open...

"Jethro! I'm glad I caught you I've got news on your case it seems…."

And with Ducky's interruption the conversation about Christmas is quickly forgotten.

.

Tony's doing paperwork at his desk. Gibbs is standing back watching him. It's gone eight on Christmas Eve and Gibbs honestly thought Tony would have better places to be by now, but clearly not. With a defeated sigh he walks over to his desk and grabs his coat.

"Case boss?" Tony jumps up and grabs his gear.

"No," Gibbs shakes his head, seizing his own.

"So where we going?" Tony asks in a panic.

Gibbs registers the use of 'we', bags it like evidence in his mind and then files it away for later use.

"_You're_ going home," he keeps walking, this time over to the elevator.

Tony thinks he catches on, stutters, stammers, looks deflated, "Oh, sure, I just gotta get this done first then I'll go," and sinks back into his seat.

"It can wait."

"Yeah but why make it? You know it's….."

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs huffs gruffly, making it clear he means business and he will not waste time spelling it out.

_And Gibbs thought he'd got rid of high maintenance when he divorced his last wife…_

"Yeah boss?" Tony, looking up at him from under long eyelashes, says shyly - sounding scared even - of what he's about to say.

"If I ask for peace and quiet this Christmas do you think I'll get it?" He sighs, feeling like he's the one that should be secretly terrified.

Tony looks confused, but never one not to have an answer…

"Depends on who you invite round boss," he says quickly and with a straight face.

Gibbs shakes his head, rolling his eyes at the snow covered sky light praying for strength.

"Put it this way. You sit and you shut up." He looks Tony directly in the eye.

For his part Tony suddenly has a bright grin on his face.

"So you do, do Christmas!" He beams, stands and grabs his gear again without pause.

"I don't." Gibbs sighs again- _making it a habit_ - turns and continues his walk towards the elevator, "but Abby does, and Ducky, and _You_." He stresses.

Tony drops the grin, looking nothing but confused when he catches up to him.

"You lost me."

"Abby's already cooking something I'm sure. Ducky is just visiting and _you_ will be in bed by midnight. Any questions?" adding as an aside, "I'd like some quiet over the holiday."

"Of course boss." Tony replies like it was obvious, "if you stay up past midnight Santa won't come."

Gibbs frowns as they walked side by side to the elevator trying to judge if he's joking or not. Seeing Tony's ear to ear grin and listening to the excited babbling, he honestly can't tell for the life of him.

.

"By jove my boy how did you manage?" Ducky asks Tony later that evening, when he traps him in Gibbs' kitchen after they've eaten dinner.

As it turned out Abby had indeed already planned on cooking, and had everything ready in fact, though she hadn't known whether it would be eaten until Gibbs called her from the car and ordered her to have dinner at his place within the hour. Christmas wasn't something Abby had thought to be celebrated this year, but Tony's infectious Christmas joy had rekindled the spirit she thought had left her when her mom died last year. One of his many good qualities, as she'd told him a few weeks ago when he arrived in her lab with a box full of decorations, was his ability to always make others smile.

"Manage what to what?" Tony panics, pulling himself from that good memory to focus on Ducky's innocuous question, immediately thinking he's forgotten something really important. He hates letting anyone down.

"Gibbs hasn't celebrated Christmas in all the time I've known him, despite my encouragements." Ducky reaches for his drink, awaiting his answer expectantly.

"You know," Tony cocks his head to the side in thought, "Abby asked me the same thing."

.

"He okay?" Gibbs asks nudging his head at his new Probie and Abby finishing decorating a tree in his living room.

"He's very happy. This was a nice thing you did Jethro¸ I know you dislike the holiday so."

"I don't dislike Christmas Duck." Gibbs pins him with a glare which has no effect outside of the office.

"You've never celebrated."

Gibbs grunts, looks over at Tony and changes the subject. Sort of.

"I didn't want him alone." He admits.

"Yes, he may not have made it down the aisle, but I can imagine calling off a wedding only a day before can feel much like a divorce. I understand they were together a while?"

"They met when he was sixteen." Gibbs slips that little nugget into their conversation, not yet having had the opportunity to share the information with anyone.

"Really?" Ducky's jaw drops. "Not to cast him so, but I had the impression young Anthony was what the woman term 'a player'?"

Gibbs chuckles, the word 'player' coming from Ducky sounding wholly unnatural.

"They weren't together the whole time. She was already living in Baltimore when he transferred as detective." Gibbs pauses, preparing the right words. "She was his high school music teacher."

Ducky snaps his gaze to Gibbs to see his reaction, "You sure they weren't..?"

Gibbs glares.

"You're right, probably better not to ask."

Ducky drinks his whiskey contemplating the possibilities and goes for a refill, leaving Gibbs wondering the same thing. Older women figure significantly in Tony's past and he wonders what might happen now one had not only broken his heart, but ripped it out and thrown it away like week old Christmas favours. He knows DiNozzo's had a rather unorthodox upbringing and thinks if he were his kid, he would have been sure to teach him better, or at least look out for him more. _And how does a fifteen year old meet a Rockette anyway?_ It was an excellent question, but a better one would be what the hell was a fifteen year old _Child_ doing in New York _alone _in the first place? It made Gibbs mad to think about the lack of parental supervision which led to a boy becoming a man long before he was ready, but it wasn't his place, the damage done was clear to see and though he has no plans to fix anything in Tony he certainly feels the need to teach him better for the future.

"He's like an over developed twelve year old playing at being an adult." Gibbs surmises to himself.

Ducky smiles at the analogy.

"Who's twelve?" Tony interrupts, walking into the kitchen with enough stealth to make Gibbs proud.

Ducky visibly startles, clearly wondering how much he's heard, but Gibbs surprises him by answering honestly and somewhat flatly.

"You are."

"Ah, well yeah," Tony bounces on heels, "being a grown up's no fun boss."

Gibbs raises an eyebrow at Tony's cheeky grin as he passes through and returns to Abby, having retrieved whatever it was he'd come in for.

"It must be nice." Ducky says wishfully and Gibbs looks at him, a question in his eye, "-to be an eternal child" he explains.

Gibbs looks surprised and realises with dread he may share the sentiment.

"Yeah," he reluctantly agrees, hoping this doesn't mean he's getting old.

"Of course, being the parent is just as satisfying." Ducky smiles wisely and Gibbs looks away.

.

Time moves quickly on and before long Ducky bids his farewell, Gibbs walking him out to his car. Returning inside he catches Abby and Tony fussing with yet more tinsel, so hangs back with another glass of bourbon to watch them work. They're both laughing and smiling around a tree that looks like a landing pad for an alien space ship. Lights twinkling, baubles and tinsel covering nearly every branch not an ounce of green is left to be seen. It was going to be hell to clean up, but they're having fun and it gives him a warm feeling inside, despite every fibre of his second B for bastard persona wanting to deny it.

"Gibbs! You coming to see Black Death?" Gibbs, snapped out of his sappy thoughts, just looks at her without a hint of expression. Abby blinks. "Sure," she turns to smile at Tony. "You're coming aren't you? We can stay up all night! Get tattoos and-"

"Abs that's…" Tony makes a face, looks to Gibbs for help.

"He has a bedtime." Gibbs chuckles at Tony's put out expression. Tough - if he wants his help, this is it. "Santa won't come if he's not asleep."

Gibbs and Abby both laugh, Tony narrows his eyes with a wily smile, promising retribution.

"Okay how about you two go to bed and wait for Santa, and I'll see you for breakfast," she sooths, kissing Tony on the cheek before getting up and grabbing her purse.

They say a quick goodbye to Abby, watching her fly out the door into her hearse, which pulls away from the kerb with a screech and clunk. Gibbs, feeling more at peace than he has in over a decade at this time of year, walks toward the basement door. When he senses Tony following he stops, turns and looks at him.

"What?"

"It's nearly midnight DiNozzo." Gibbs answers the clueless expression.

"Yeah, but…oh you were serious..."

Gibbs just looks at him. _When has he ever joked?_

Tony mimes zipping his mouth shut.

"I promise I won't talk."

"Unlikely."

"Couch?" he tries, hoping.

"Upstairs," Gibbs says plainly, and then with a hint of amusement adds, "Santa won't come if you're camping out."

Tony rolls his eyes, but climbs the stairs willingly, if somewhat lethargic and shouts cheerily back at him...

"Happy Holiday's boss!"

Gibbs shakes his head, smiling at the garish monstrosity that was once a beautiful pine in his living room waiting until he hears the bedroom door close and then walking down his basement stairs whispers, "Merry Christmas Tony."

.

A/N again: Thanks for reading! Tony's second Christmas at NCIS coming same-ish time next week. Happy new NCIS day!


	2. 2002

Pre-season: Tony's 2nd Year

.

_**Christmas Day 2002…**_

Tony's slow return to wakefulness occurred late in the afternoon, with the sun shining low and bright through the large window creating a soft golden glow around the contemporarily sparse, yet homely living room. Taking note of every twinge in his aching back, no doubt a result of sleeping on the worn sofa, he blinked a few times to clear his vision and assimilate his new surroundings. He was halfway through a stretch when his shuffling feet connected with something warm and solid that definitely _wasn't _the sofa.

Tony gently kicked it experimentally, but froze upon hearing the not-sofa's soft groan of protest, "_Boss_?"

"Who were you expecting DiNozzo?" Gibbs frowned at him over the top of an open book which he rested on Tony's feet, which were resting - of all places – on Gibbs' lap.

"I'm not sure I was expecting to wake up with anyone." Tony answered nervously, head cocked to the side focusing on the book cover, trying to ignore their close proximity.

"Yeah?" Gibbs dropped the book to the coffee table before Tony could read the title, "Well you got me."

He shrugged with a teasing smile that only set Tony's nerves even further on edge.

"No offence Gibbs," Tony paused, swallowed and regrouped, even he could hear he fear in his voice, "but what's going on?"

"You don't remember?"

Tony shook his head, decidedly nervous, wondering where his double b for bastard boss, as he remembers calling him recently, had gone. Gibbs appeared to be giving his none answer some serious thought though.

He grunted, gaze appraising him, then after a short pause spoke, "it's Christmas DiNozzo."

.

_**Two days earlier…**_

"Vivian around?" Ducky asked immediately upon entering the dimly lit bullpen.

He was flustered to say the least, the case they were wrapping up was taking a little longer than anticipated to dot the i's and cross the t's. Staffing was the main cause for his slow progress, they'd started the week on a skeleton crew due to the holidays, so despite it being a Monday the whole office was almost assuredly to be deserted by 5pm, which meant instead of making the usual phone calls to get things squared away he was having to do a lot of the running around himself and for a man of his advanced years that wasn't an easy task.

"No Ducky," Tony answered flatly without looking away from his computer screen.

Ducky paused in front of his desk, watching the boy type using just his index finger, jabbing the keys awkwardly like a toddler with a new toy he didn't fully understand. It was fascinating really, out of all the people Gibbs could have recommended for hire and requested to build a team with, he chose likely the only other person on the planet who possessed worse computer skills than he did.

"When are you going to take Abby up on those typing lesson Anthony, really it would make your life so much easier." He smiled kindly, settling himself comfortably at the adjacent empty desk, the reason for his visit temporarily forgotten.

"I do okay." Tony responded quietly, gaze still fixed to his screen.

Ducky could sense not only the high level of concentration going on, but also the dejected disappointment in his voice and believed he knew why Tony was showing even less prowess than usual with the poor abused keyboard he was systematically tapping the life out of.

"So you think you can manage to type this one only twice instead of the customary four?" He chuckled, knowing that even a year down the line and Gibbs was still sending his reports back to be redone.

"His record is five," Gibb strolled into the bullpen at that exact moment, coffee in hand.

"Preparing for a long wait Jethro?" Ducky hinted at the large still steaming coffee cup.

That comment did provoke a reaction in the focused young man, and Ducky laughed heartily when Tony shot daggers at the pair of them while they shared a rare smile.

"What you doing here Duck?" Gibbs settled himself down at his own desk.

"Ah, well," Ducky had to think for a second before it came back to him, "I needed Agent Blackadder's signature…"

He cut himself short because though he hadn't warmed to the new young lady just yet he had no desire to get her in trouble.

"What she forget Duck?" Gibbs said evenly, though no one could miss the icy undertone.

"Chain of evidence," he said bluntly wishing he'd caught the mistake sooner and saved her what was sure to be a severe punishment.

Gibbs threw down the pen he'd been using to sign off on his own paperwork and swore under his breath. Ducky heard the sudden silence over at DiNozzo's desk and like Tony waited patiently for the volcano to explode, but it never did.

"I'll deal with it, go home Duck." He said tightly.

The keyboard abuse resumed and Gibbs collected up his pen.

"Well mother is spending the holidays with an old family friend in aspen." Ducky relaxed, happy the moment had passed without incident, though he did feel for Vivian coming into the office in the morning, "I was invited too of course but our most recent case made my going somewhat impossible. I thought I'd see what you were doing?"

Gibbs shrugged, "same as always."

"Unless we get another case," Tony muttered dejectedly, "since we're on call all week."

The comment was followed by several hard whacks to his computer screen and a tormented shout of '_oh come on!'_

"_DiNozzo_," Jethro made the name sound like a warning, "You break that thing and I'll be deducting the replacement costs from your paycheque."

"Sorry boss." The no-longer-a Probie ground out like it pained him.

Ducky raised an eyebrow and standing from the desk walked over to Gibbs to speak privately.

"Is Anthony alright Jethro? Seems a little down, normally he's as bouncy as Abby around the holidays…"

Gibbs looked up and over at DiNozzo.

"His girlfriend broke up with him." He sounded annoyed, and to anyone who knew him well, there was a hint of barely detectable concern in there too.

"I broke up with her _actually_." Tony interjected, mainly to point out he could hear them, but unfortunately whatever had been building up inside the poor lad, taking it out on the computer keyboard was no longer enough and that one comment broke the dam that had clearly been holding it all in, "And what sane person wants their boyfriend to meet the parents after only four months of dating anyway? There are rules to these things you can't just-"

Listening to him air his woes Ducky felt the brief concern he'd felt leave him since it turned out to be nothing more than a spot of woman trouble affecting his favourite boy. This sort of thing wasn't uncommon and he'd soon learned not to worry too much when it came to Tony and his girlfriends. He wasn't the committing type, or so he rambunctiously claimed.

"Got your hands full I see." Ducky turned back to Gibbs, eyebrows raised as Tony continued his rant, completely unaware of the amusement they were gaining from his youthful outrage.

Or rather _he_ was gaining. Jethro simply nodded with a look of paternal concern on his face. It was a look Ducky had become accustomed to seeing more and more often in recent months. And the fact Tony had been having a hard time of it recently a _coincidence? _As Gibbs would say, _there's no such thing_. Vivian's recruitment to the team in September was only one of many things not going smoothly for them. For starters Jethro liked to pick his team members, so when Director Morrow assigned the young woman Ducky knew he'd be getting several unscheduled visits where ranting was the order of the day. Of course this spelled trouble for young Anthony too, since he so often took the brunt of his dear friend's bad moods, more so now that he was a full Agent and deemed capable to handle anything Jethro threw at him, sometimes literally. However it was the incident back in October, which landed poor Anthony in the hospital and upset Gibbs so much that he ended up sharing some rather personal details about his protégé over the young man's ICU bed. That alone had led to an increase of paternal stares aimed at the clueless young man still bashing the life out of one undeserving keyboard.

Ducky's gaze unintentionally lingered on the object of his thoughts and Tony must have sensed him looking because he stopped typing and eyed them speculatively.

"You got that report for me yet DiNozzo?" Gibbs barked putting his pissed off face back on and making Ducky jump with the ferocity.

Tapping the desk to gain Jethro's attention Ducky gave him an reproving look, communicating without words a reminder of the numerous times he'd warned him to go easy on the boy. He was rewarded with a modicum of success when, sighing deeply, Gibbs gave in.

"Ok, clocking off time DiNozzo, you can finish that report tomorrow." The look he immediately shot Ducky asked, _satisfied?_ And the smile Ducky sent back return answered, _quite._

Tony however had lifted from his dejected slump with a frozen look of surprise on his face. When Jethro nodded at him adding a small lip curl to assure him he meant it, Tony wasted no time in grabbing his things and shouting a hesitant _'thank-you boss'_ before running out.

Gibbs waited until Tony was safely in the elevator before dropping his head to hide the wide smile he let loose at his antics.

"Night cap then Jethro? My treat" Ducky added, as a form of persuasion, "tomorrow is Christmas eve after all."

"Why not," Gibbs shrugged in the affirmative getting up and walking over to Tony's desk to switch off the lamp he'd left on.

Cheered at the thought of actually getting Jethro out of his basement for the second Christmas in a row Ducky reached behind the spare desk to pick up his coat which he'd left there when out the corner of his eye he saw Gibbs hovering over Anthony's computer looking perturbed.

"Something wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Maybe I have," Gibbs muttered and then called him over, pointing at the still switched on computer screen.

The look of unease on his friend's face was enough to make Ducky dread whatever it was he'd found and without thought of whether this was considered snooping or not he quickly stepped behind the incredibly messy desk to take a look himself.

"Oh Jethro," he breathed upon reading what Jethro had found, "the poor boy…"

Gibbs growled under his breath, looking at the screen like he could interrogate it into giving him all the answers he needed to make sense of what it displayed. Ducky saw his jaw clench and eyes narrow, a sure sign he was experiencing feelings way out of his comfort zone and had no idea how to either express or deal with them. Gibbs had never been one for hand holding and he'd been harder on DiNozzo than any other Probie before him, but, despite the bastard persona he put out there, it was clear to those that knew him best, namely Ducky and Abby, that Tony meant more to him than just another Agent on his team.

"What are you going to do?" Ducky asked cautiously when Gibbs unfroze and clicked off the monitor without shutting the system down.

"I'm not going to do anything. Tony wants my help he'll ask for it." Gibbs snapped and shrugged defensively at him, which was code for he had no idea what to do because it didn't involve arresting or killing someone. "I'm not going to baby him."

Ducky shook his head at his pig-headed stubbornness. Gibbs was denying his feelings, ones that had started off fairly innocent, but over the last year had grown from seeing something in a young detective worth investing his time in to discovering he cared for the boy's wellbeing far beyond his safety on the job.

"Jethro talking to the lad about his problems is not babying him," Ducky chastised quite fed up with his continual denial of what they all knew to be the truth. "Wait, you're not not going to help him just because he hasn't come to you yet are you?"

Gibbs completely ignored him of course, but he was undeterred as they walked out together heading for the bar. He'd always loved a challenge, and working out what Gibbs was thinking and feeling would be just that. Something was going to break soon he could feel it. Ducky just hoped that something wasn't going to be young Anthony.

.

"Morning boss!" Tony shouted running in with a bright smile, no doubt trying to pretend like he wasn't over 30 minutes late.

Vivian and Gibbs were both already at their desks looking as equally stony as each other. He'd had it out with her about the chain of evidence mistake Ducky alerted him to yesterday and unfortunately for her Ducky had been right about him being rather angry that Tony hadn't told him about the email he'd accidently seen on his computer last night. Something had been bugging Gibbs all day about DiNozzo and it had driven him to distraction. The change in him from just the previous week had been so pronounced he'd wanted to call him out on it, but couldn't think of a way to address his sombre attitude without making it obvious he had no idea what was wrong. So Tony wasn't excited about Christmas? So what? Why should he care right? The problem was he did care. Cared enough that while he should have been conference calling with Bahrain from MTAC yesterday he had actually been going over in his head all the possible reasons Tony would have to be upset. And to be honest his father didn't figure into any of the explanations Gibbs had come up with.

Now it was Tuesday, Christmas Eve, and Tony seemed to have gotten his game together, or more likely he'd found a way to hide his hurt so it wasn't obvious anything was wrong. Well he could maybe fool the others, but he couldn't fool him and now he knew what was wrong he was in a stronger position to push Tony into doing something about it.

"You're late," Gibbs barked as Tony tiptoed over to his desk, looking chastised before he'd even had the chance to ball him out.

He really was starting to hate that look.

"I know," he admits without preamble, and then Gibbs knows it's bad because he doesn't even try to explain or make a joke, "but I got the report finished."

Tony quickly picked up a file from his desk that hadn't been there when he'd left last night and handed it to him. He took it and gave it a cursory once over for obvious mistakes. Tony was still smiling at him Gibbs realised, obviously waiting to be either punished or forgiven for his tardiness. He settled a heated glare on him and kept it up as Tony gingerly walked back over to his desk and took his seat. To anyone watching he appeared to be angry, but he knew Tony knew that the glare expressed a lot more than his displeasure.

"I thought I ordered you home." Gibbs said moving on and making it clear he wasn't happy about him coming back into the office in the middle of the night either.

"I do some of my best work at night boss," Tony winked, brushing off the icy tone with ease.

Too much ease as far as he was concerned. At first Gibbs had put it down to cheek, but after a few close calls where he'd gotten to see the real Anthony DiNozzo Jr, who it turned out was a kid far less cock sure of himself than he liked to portray, Gibbs noticed that Tony was never more at ease than when he was being yelled at. After leaving last night he'd had a drink with Ducky, who had tried to get him talking, but his mind had been elsewhere and remained elsewhere all evening. It may have helped him by preventing him from getting into anything too deep with Ducky, but it also prevented him from getting anything resembling sleep, even with a boat full of bourbon in his gut. It had gotten so bad that he'd decided there was nothing for it - he'd started drawing up plans to build another boat in his basement. If he wasn't going to sleep he may as well do something productive. Talking of sleep, one look at DiNozzo as he slunk behind his desk looking like death warmed over told him he wasn't the only one not getting at least his manageable four hours.

Vivian was staring at them from the adjacent desk, but when she noticed he'd noticed quickly put her head down. Gibbs still didn't like her, wasn't sure why but there was something, he sensed she was going to get them in trouble – more than she'd already caused by continually forgetting basic crime scene rules and landing Tony in ICU a couple of months ago. Though not directly her fault, she didn't physically hurt him, it was her mistake that left Tony unprotected aboard a ship with a group of marines who had nothing to lose. He also hated her hair. It reminded him of his ex-wife.

With his thoughts temporarily side-tracked on hospitals, hair and wives he missed the rare moment of vulnerability that crossed Tony's face when he turned on his computer monitor and realised he hadn't shut it down properly from the night before.

A phone rang before anymore could be said on the matter.

Gibbs spoke a few choice words to the caller then addressed the room. "Gear up! We got a missing Petty Officer..."

"Only missing?" Vivian asked.

"Did I forget to mention the fifty thousand that went missing with him?" Gibbs glared at her, still sat dumbly at her desk while he and Tony where halfway to the elevator.

"Great," Tony muttered completely enthused. "A missing person's case on Christmas Eve, at least 48 hours of non-stop working fun. This week just keeps getting better."

.

"Mrs Barnes?" Gibbs asked when the much older looking than her birth date suggested, woman open the door.

"Yes?"

"Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo and Blackadder NCIS," Gibbs said stoically, showing his badge and pointing to his junior agents in turn.

"Stu's commander said you'd be round." Jenifer Barnes left the agents standing at the door to follow her in and without resting her empty glass stumbled into the living room.

The distinctive smell of stale alcohol and cigarettes permeated the room, making the atmosphere stuffy and uncomfortable. There was no tree or decorations of any kind despite the information they had indicating Barnes and her son where Catholic, but then he didn't have decorations up either. First time he'd had a tree in over a decade was last year when Abby and DiNozzo had dragged one home with them last Christmas Eve. He wasn't against them, just didn't see the point. He guessed Mrs Barnes felt the same way.

"I've no idea why mind you," she poured herself another scotch and took a long drink, waving the bottle at them before falling into the sofa pressed against the wall of one of the most cluttered apartments Gibbs had ever seen – and he'd been to DiNozzo's place. "Not seen Stu in nearly three years."

"Since he joined the Navy," Blackadder interrupted, still standing stiffly in the doorway not doing a good job of hiding her disgust at the state of the apartment and getting a look from Mrs Barnes.

"You're sharp," Barnes replied, not even remotely meaning it as a compliment. "So what's he done? Why you after him?"

"What makes you think he's done something?" Gibbs queried taking an unoffered seat.

"I've Navy cops in my living room," she drawled, rolling a cigarette with her right hand while she nursed her scotch in her left.

Gibbs chuckled politely, hiding his pity for this woman that had lost a son, not through death perhaps, but lost all the same.

"Stuart went AWOL from his ship yesterday," Tony finally joined them.

He'd been pacing the length of the room, looking around, scouting out any places a 6ft 4 petty officer might hide in a one bed apartment. Everything Gibbs expected him to do, only on this occasion Gibbs wasn't convinced Tony's head was fully on the case and he'd bet his father's email had something to do with that.

"So?" Mrs Barnes lit her cigarette and relaxed back into the sofa even more.

"Soooo, he took fifty grand, the entire crew's wages for Christmas leave with him," Tony turned on her.

"Stu wouldn't do that," she snapped defensively. "What the hell are you suggesting?"

"We're not suggesting anything mam," Blackadder put in politely, thinking she was helping. "We just thought your son might have contacted you, I'm sorry if we upset you."

Gibbs cursed under his breath at her stupidity, but had to roll with it

"Well you did," Mrs Barnes started to yell, "Now get out I've got stuff to do,"

Gibbs stood and eyeing Tony indicated they were to leave, he left Blackadder to follow.

.

Out in the hall Tony walked a little way down the dark damp corridor so Vivian didn't have an audience to her second raking over the coals of the day. As soon as she'd opened her mouth Tony had seen what was coming, had he been paying more attention he could have forestalled her, interrupted her, something that didn't end with her blowing the unofficial interrogation he and Gibbs were working up to. He knew she'd been yelled at this morning too, that was the real reason he'd been late. The email from his dad had knocked him for six Monday morning and though he was sure he'd get over it Tony didn't think he could handle listening to Gibbs chewing out Viviane without being reminded of him and he never wanted to associate Gibbs with his father. For his own sanity he couldn't.

Tony had reached the stairwell and did a quick 180 on his heel to turn back when out of nowhere a very large man barrelled out of an apartment door to his left, right in his blind spot. Tony wasn't even aware of him until he pushed into him, knocking him down the flight of stairs. He felt the first hit keenly, but the following bumps as he toppled down the steps just added bruises upon bruises until his head impacted the wall at the back of the sub-landing. Feet ran past him and without thinking Tony pulled himself up to run after them.

_His head is fuzzy, vision blurry when he exits the building onto the street. He thinks he shouts at the man to stop, thinks he calls him by his name 'oh Stuart!' He thinks he identifies himself as a federal agent. But all Tony knows for sure is that his feet have left the ground and that searing pain in his side isn't an injury he sustained in the fall, but from the impact of the Chevy impala that ran smack into him when he chased the suspect across the road._

.

"What the hell DiNozzo!"

Gibbs slapped Tony round the face to gain his attention before he yelled at him again and then peeled him off the street, bodily carrying him, feet dragging uselessly against the concrete, over to the sidewalk where he dropped him and proceeded to shake the living hell out of him.

"Boss," Tony pleaded nasally around the blood running out of his swollen nose.

"What the HELL did you think you were doing?"

"Boss,"

"You're lucky they managed to stop in time, you could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Boss,"

"You weren't thinking!" Gibbs shook him again, harder.

"Boss I'm going throw up," Tony said quickly, just before bending over and empting his stomach to the left of Gibbs' shoes.

That should have touched a nerve within him, but Gibbs had started the day off in an extra grumpy mood and Tony's lateness combined with his own lack of sleep and Blackadder's incompetence had pushed him beyond all that was considered reasonable behaviour for him today.

"You good?" He asked in a more controlled tone, rubbing a palm over the strained shoulder muscles when he stopped gaging.

He was holding Tony up at the waist, arms encircling him so he didn't fall flat into the vomit puddle he'd just created and decided to give him a minute to gather himself. He'd heard more so than saw Tony take the header down the stairs, but no one was more surprised than him when he reached the sub-landing just in time to see Tony running out the building. With his heart in his throat Gibbs was just in time to witness the Chevy slam its breaks on, knock their suspect down and then serve into Tony, clipping him enough to send him sprawling to the floor, but not so bad that Tony was already sitting up by the time Gibbs reached his side.

Tony made a grunt of protest and tugged Gibbs' sleeve, indicating he wanted up. He helped him stand upright and once he was steady let go.

"You're wrong boss," Tony faced him, wiping his mouth of blood that was still running from his nose, "I do think. I think that second B of yours really does stand for bastard."

The false grin which punctuated this statement was enough to send Gibbs over the edge and back up again. He was all ready to make another callous comment about Tony's lack of brain power and throw his butt in the car to take to hospital when twin green eyes rolled back to show nothing but white and he pitched forward straight into his arms.

If Gibbs thought he was scared before, he was downright terrified now and left completely unguarded by the sudden change he let unabashed fear consume him.

"We need help over here!" He screamed at one of the uniforms who were on the scene.

Gibbs, with Tony's completely limp body in his arms, fell to the concrete and held him until paramedics, who were attending to their no longer missing Petty Officer, answered his calls for help.

.

DiNozzo had been out of it in the ER, which was packed with people when the ambulance crew had escorted them straight through to the treatment area. Gibbs keeping a firm grip on Tony's hand the entire way. He earned himself a few choice looks from various practitioners who dared to try and separate them, but that didn't bother Gibbs, let them think what they wanted. He was a marine and he wasn't about to let one of his own out of his sight for even a second while they were compromised, even in a hospital. He was far too aware of what happened the first time Tony had travelled to hospital alone and didn't want a repeat of the situation.

They were in a room waiting for the doctor to come back and tell them his scans where clean when Tony finally woke up. Gibbs watched him closely as he opened his eyes, realised where they were and immediately kick himself.

"Hey, welcome back." Gibbs kept his tone neutral, his concern tightly guarded.

"Well this is just perfect." Tony grumbled, sitting up on the bed hanging his legs over the edge and covering his face with both hands.

Gibbs pushed away from his sentry post in the corner of the room and approached, instinctually laying a hand affectionately on top of Tony's bent head. His jump of surprise alerted to Gibbs to the strangeness of what he was doing, but instead of pulling his hand back he left the weight where it was and proceeded to smooth down the messy gelled hair which stuck up at all angles thanks to all the activity giving him an extra two inches in height.

"Don't want them thinking you've been electrocuted" he covered, answering the scared confused smile he was getting from Tony.

"Of course not," Tony played along, still looking bemused and no doubt suspecting something was wrong, but not willing to tip his hand and call him on it just yet.

"Doc's have said you're okay, bruised, going be hurting a while but nothing serious, just waiting for some test results to confirm it." Gibbs dropped his hand back to his side and studied Tony's none reaction to the good news. "You were lucky. If the car had hit you head on we'd be looking at a body bag."

He felt stupid saying he was lucky to be honest, because though the nurses had done a good job of cleaning him up Tony still looked like a horror movie extra. His nose was swollen and purple looking, arms and legs scraped, the hospital gown was a pale yellow colour that did little to help Tony's own ghost like complexion. His own clothes were of course ruined, pants and shirt ripped, covered in blood and puke. When they'd asked Gibbs had instructed the nurse to burn the lot. Luckily Blackadder had gotten something right and managed to get another Agent to bring him something to wear home. When the doctor had said he would likely be released as long as the scan was clean Gibbs had demanded a second opinion, but as it turned out DiNozzo had had a lucky escape this time. His initial bout of unconsciousness had been brief and they'd given him something for the pain back in the ambulance which is why Tony had slept through most of the waiting around and was only just now waking up.

"What about Stuart?" Tony asked voice hoarse.

"Broken ankle, Blackadder's with him now until he can be transported back to NCIS, slipped on the ice after the car missed him." Gibbs smiled, knowing Tony would at least find that amusing.

"And the money?" Tony surprised him by not even letting that curl his lip.

"Pacci caught the mother trying to leave the apartment with most of it." He answered, though his thoughts weren't on the case.

Gibbs glared at Tony, a clear frown on his face as he studied him, eyes narrowing ever so slightly when Tony looked down and away as if ashamed.

"Hey, you okay Tony?" Gibbs queried, though it sounded like a stupid question to ask someone who had just been pushed down a flight of stairs and hit by a car Gibbs knew DiNozzo knew why he was asking.

Seeing the warm flush rise on already pale cheeks he couldn't help but think all of this could have been avoided if he'd just done as Ducky told him last night and spoke to the kid this morning.

"This about your father's email?"

"You saw that huh?" Tony said as if confirming a mere fact, not at all surprised by his knowledge.

"When were you going to tell me?"

Not were you, but when, because Gibbs knew Tony would come to him eventually. He always had done, since day one when he'd followed him to his partners home, not to bust either one of them, but to be there for him, to support him when the walls came crashing down and all that was left was to sink or swim.

"It's nothing boss," Tony slumped even further on the bed, to the point Gibbs was having to bend down to look him in the eye.

Another instinct overtook him at that moment and Gibbs acted upon it, smacking him in the head.

Tony raised his eyes to meet his and without his usual beaming smile sighed and said "I'll get over it."

Gibbs sighed himself, there wasn't a lot that upset Tony, not outwardly at least and not to the point he wouldn't even try to put up an 'I'll be fine front.' Not sure on the best way to proceed Gibbs took a shot in the dark and went for broke.

"Ducky's worried about you," The words came out sounding uncomfortable and natural to him, so bad he wanted to shoot Ducky right then for not forcing him to fix this sooner.

"Are _you_ worried?" Tony shot back without pause.

Gibbs stared at him, but Tony's gaze never wavered, sharp despite the headache he must have at the very least despite pain killers. He was serious Gibbs realised. Tony was always after his attention, trying to get him to say something that might hint at caring, but he'd never had the guts to outright ask him, before now. By the desperate look in his eyes he was as raw and open emotionally as he'd ever seen him. Yet for some reason, instead of vulnerable he looked dangerous.

So shocked by that piercing look he apparently took too long to provide an answer, not that Tony gave him much time to assimilate the question, but never the less Tony turned away looking like he'd gotten his answer and had expected nothing less.

"Gibbs I'm fine now," _Gibbs_ he noted, not 'Boss' as he come to expect in these moments.

"You're not fine DiNozzo," Gibbs took a step back, ensuring his hands remained firmly by his side.

"Well I'm not delirious or in pain anymore and if I'm not mistaken it's still Christmas Eve, there's still a chance one of us can have a Happy Holiday,"

Gibbs couldn't be sure which one of them he was talking about, but knowing DiNozzo the comments are almost always self-deprecating. "You're not in pain because of the drugs DiNozzo, and the doctor's going to be in here any minute, let's let her decide you get a merry Christmas shall we?"

He deserved a goddam Oscar for his performance there, managing to act like he didn't want to slap Tony silly for being such a class A idiot, and not just because he chased after a suspect without back-up, without regard for his own condition and ran head long into a main road to get hit by a car.

"What time is it?" Tony sounded panicked.

"7:30," Gibbs groaned, stretching.

"But we went to see the mom just before lunch…"

"Yep,"

Gibbs avoided looking at him head on, preferring to keep a subtle eye on him from the side instead.

"You didn't have to stay with me this whole time," Tony laid himself back down on the bed, managing to pull off sad disgruntled and childish all in one move.

"How'd you know I did?" Gibbs turned and grinned at him, but Tony's sad smile had him regretting the attempt at humour, he clearly wasn't in the frame of mind to understand he was only joking.

"What a perfect end to a perfectly crappy Christmas. Happy holiday's boss,"

_Boss _this time Gibbs noticed, there was still some hope to salvage this yet.

"What's eating you DiNozzo, and don't tell me it's nothing." Gibbs sighed settling himself back against the bed, looking down on Tony.

There wasn't a chance they were leaving before sorting this out.

"Thought you didn't care," Tony managed to both snap and whine at the same time.

Gibbs bit his tongue, keeping his instinctual impolite response to himself. Tony was pushing him to react on purpose and though his own experience with kids may be limited he could recognise a tired and upset one when they were right in front of him.

"I never said that." Gibbs said calmly, biting the inside of his cheek to keep that way.

It was clearly the right choice because without the kindling there was no fire and without fire Tony deflated, losing all his unused anger in one final vent.

"She wanted me to spend Christmas with her and her family, they a have house they go to every year, make snow man, have dinner, gifts and a bunch of other happy holiday stuff that I've never-" His brief rant winked out to a mere whisper.

Gibbs blinked. He'd been expecting something and being a good marine was prepared for anything, but he had his money on this being about the email from his dad. The one wishing his only son a Merry Christmas and informing him of all the fun he was having with his new wife and her family in Hawaii this year. Telling Tony he wouldn't be back until the New Year and he could call him then if he liked. It was the coldest, most unbelievable sorry excuse for self-promotion Gibbs had ever seen. One of those impersonal family newsletters, like one of his past sister in laws used to send out bragging about her family would have been kinder than that personal attack of pompous trash. From what he knew Tony's father hadn't spent a Christmas with him since he was a little kid and he had the nerve to send him _that!_ The man was damn lucky he wasn't anywhere within sniper range. However, putting homicidal thoughts to one side for now, Gibbs had to focus. Tony was talking about the girl he'd been dating and recently parted ways with.

"Apparently not going was a deal breaker and I refused to go so…" He capped off his confession with a heavy sigh, like the whole world was weighing down on his not long turned thirty year old shoulders.

"Did you tell her why," it wasn't a question.

He thought he'd skip over all the usual exposition and just get to the heart of the matter. By now Tony knew he knew a lot more about him than he'd ever told. The fact he'd not only accepted Gibbs changing his next of kin notification two months ago from his father to himself, but also thanked him, said more than a whole discussion could and that's why he liked DiNozzo, the kid could talk for an Olympic sport, but when it came to things that mattered he was surprisingly and pleasantly succinct.

"No," Tony answered, rolling onto his side so his back was to the door and Gibbs could no longer see his face. "Not the real reason anyway."

"And what's that?" Gibbs kept his face forward, taking note of the shivers running through taught muscles and the way his arm curled around his belly.

"Don't you already know?" Tony snapped, a breathy reply that had Gibbs willing the doctor to show her face again soon.

"Why don't you tell me," he pushed again, if nothing else than to keep him distracted and talking.

"Her Dad," Tony paused, letting the weight of the word hang between them, "He's rich, has several businesses and goes to lots of cocktail parties, not to mention has a few mistresses that apparently aren't spoken about."

The bitterness when he said _mistresses _was hard to miss.

"Like your father." Gibbs stated firmly, settling his hand in the small of Tony's back and rubbing gently.

"Like my father." Tony echoed distantly, finally giving in and chucking up what was left in his stomach.

Gibbs had already placed a basin under his chin, having noticed the signs before he rolled over, thinking he could hide the fact he was going to puke again. Gibbs shook his head and kept up the rubbing motion, not smiling exactly, but not frowning either, Tony would eventually learn there was very little he could keep from him.

Once done Tony sat up with a sniff and took the water Gibbs offered before running a hand over his red eyes. He remained settled against the bed, where he'd been the entire time silent, watching, waiting, imagining the thoughts, dreams, memories that had likely been running through Tony's head since receiving that email from his father and then dealing with a girlfriend who had no idea who Tony really was. He wished he could have known about all of this sooner so as to prevent him from trying to punish himself by chasing a suspect until it nearly killed him, but wishes only counted in horse shoes and hand-grenades as his dad used to say.

"It's okay Tony." He said quietly.

Tony sighed, covering a small cry, "It really isn't Gibbs." he sniffed. "I thought after Wendy…"

But he snapped his jaw shut, a flush rising on his cheeks, whatever he'd been about to say he clearly wasn't ready for it to be heard. Gibbs watched him struggle internally for a minute then after giving him ample time and making no progress pushed away from the bed and stood in front of him. Taking his chin in one warm hand Gibbs forced Tony to look at him.

Looking him directly in the eye, soft smile gracing his lips Gibbs said with more force this time, "It's okay Tony."

.

_**The Present, Christmas day 2002…**_

"I remember the doctor telling me I had a concussion, but nothing after leaving the hospital."

Gibbs glared at him over his coffee mug, which had quickly replaced the book. "You fell back to sleep the second you got in the car."

"Oh." Tony puzzled that out, "so it's still Christmas?"

"For another," Gibbs checked his watch, "eight hours at least."

"Wow. I didn't miss it." Tony smiled, the honestly happy kind Gibbs wanted to see more often. "What about dinner?" He asked with renewed enthusiasm.

"Abby's coming round later, she's over at the retirement centre doing… something…" Gibbs shook his head. He had no idea what she was doing there. "Ducky's on his way with something you can eat, hopefully without throwing up."

Tony raised his eyebrows, but one look from Gibbs forestalled any comment. Then a frown appeared on his forehead.

"Wait, you still haven't explained this." He hinted at their sharing of the sofa, his feet still resting comfortably across Gibbs' lap.

Hey, if it didn't bother Gibbs it certainly didn't bother him.

"You'd prefer I left you at the hospital?" Gibbs' tone was terse, and avoided an answer entirely.

"No boss, thank-you, boss." He said quickly, wide eyed look fixed in place.

"The doctors gave you something for the pain DiNozzo." Gibbs explained after a sigh without spelling it out.

Tony frowned again, thinking, then… "Oh." he blanched, "Ooooh, I didn't?"

"You did." Gibbs confirmed bluntly, but thankfully without judgement.

"So you..?"

"Ahuh," Gibbs agreed without stating anything obvious.

It took a moment for him to assimilate all that. He'd had several bad reactions to pain killers over the past year, but one memory stood out clearly as the most embarrassing and he had made Gibbs promise that if he ever got that way again he was to shoot him.

"Thanks boss," Tony smiled shyly, thankful that though he hadn't done as promised and shot him, he had stayed with him and protected him from himself, which was more than he could ever ask for.

Gibbs threw him the TV remote, clearly having the same desire to not talk about it as he did.

"Shut up and watch your movie DiNozzo."

He pressed the on button and Tony cheered up on the spot upon seeing his favourite Christmas film flash up on Gibbs' old TV.

"You break into my apartment again, boss?"

"Your desk," he bit back, picking his book up from the coffee table.

"Got any popcorn?"

Gibbs lowered the book and glared.

"Shutting up Boss,"

Tony settled in, leaving his feet where they were and turning only slightly to face the TV. Seeing Gibbs lift his book again Tony risked one last comment before intending on doing just that.

"Merry Christmas"

.

A/N: well I hope you liked this as much as the first instalment. Posting a little earlier because I beat my own deadline for a change. I intentionally kept the medical details short so as not to draw focus from the real point of the story since it's only meant as a short piece. We can assume Tony was just really bloody lucky

For those that were wondering, yes there was some foreshadowing for s6 'Silent Night' the girlfriend in question here is of course the future wife of detective Kemp.

Ps. For those of you that are dying to know about Tony on pain meds as refed in this story but not explored – something that cannon hinted at in S5 - I can tell you the details will come out further into the series;)

Thanks again for reading! Until next week, ttfn x


	3. 2003 part 1

A/N: I promised one every Tuesday and with 8 minutes to spare I'm posting this as a part 1 now because I don't want to break that promise ;) Part 2 will be posted later tomorrow night! Happy NCIS night to those in the US, to everyone elsewhere like me – I feel your pain ttfn!

Season 1 Christmas 2003

_**Tuesday 23**__**rd**__** December 2003...**_

"_Okay, so what would Gibbs do?"_

The throw away comment curled Gibbs' lip enough to form what could almost pass itself off as a smile, but he and Kate continued to view the tape intently, watching Tony pace what appeared to be a dimly lit enclosed room without any windows. It was clear he didn't know he was being filmed. Not just because his gaze never once connected with the camera. If Tony knew anyone was watching him he would have made certain to hide the look of vulnerability currently plastered over his face, the look that said he was scared out of his mind and had absolutely no idea how to pull himself out of whatever trouble he'd gotten into. The camera angle was high, but not obscured. It wouldn't take him long to figure it out, but by then it would be too late.

Sure enough, as Tony moved about and searched the room he got closer and closer to the lens until he was eventually staring directly back at them, a look of pure desolation filling the bullpen's big screen. They'd visited enough crimes scenes together, caught plenty of kidnappers and murders to know a camera with a hostage in a locked room indicated nothing good. Looking into very sad green eyes as the purpose of this camera registered with said hostage Gibbs itched to move, to provide the back-up Tony knew by now wasn't immediately coming, to do _something_ other than stand and watch what was to come next.

Like clockwork, he no sooner thought it than the door in the background swung open suddenly, hitting the wall behind it with enough force to send dusty flying around the tight space. The room flooded with bright natural light and Tony spun around to face it. Just like Gibbs had trained him Tony stepped forward cautiously, his hand instinctively going to his belt where his gun would normally be. There was the sound of footsteps retreating, but instead of making for the perceived exit Tony clumsily stepped back and grabbed the camera. Dislodging it obviously did something to the sound because the recording they were watching suddenly became a silent movie. Looking directly into the camera lens they saw Tony mouth a few words before the feed winked out, turning their screen to snow.

Gibbs turned away from the snow on the screen to stare at the real white stuff falling outside the squad room windows. If he bothered to look up he'd see the skylight was almost completed covered over in frosty whiteness. Tony once told him he'd put together a 'snowed in survival kit' in case the snow got so heavy it broke the glass and they got buried alive. Gibbs had subsequently told him if that happened he wouldn't need the survival kit since he'd have most likely been impaled by a piece of falling glass, because that was just his luck. Being kidnapped a week before Christmas was also just his luck apparently. According to the time stamp at the bottom left hand corner of the screen the little film they'd been watching, which they could safely assume by the fact Tony seemed completely surprised by his surrounds upon waking up on the floor, had been recorded last Saturday. It was now Wednesday. Yet, despite knowing the odds of finding Tony alive after so many days missing were not good, Gibbs held his concern in well. He turned away from the plasma and walked over to his desk without uttering so much as a curse under his breath.

That wasn't thanks to his superb skill of keeping calm in a crisis. He was actually rarely calm, crisis or otherwise. Generally he had two moods when he was working a case – pissed off and goddamn livid. Calm only came when their case was over and he was at home, in his basement, working on his boat with the knowledge that all his team were safe and sound in their beds. No tonight his stoicism had nothing to do with being calm. Tony hadn't slept in his own bed for several days and after the initial shock, worry and yes even _panic_ for his wellbeing, Gibbs had shut down completely. It was that or he went off the deep end, because there was no way he was going to acknowledge there might be even the slightest chance he wouldn't see Tony again.

Dropping into his chair with a frustrated growl so loud he didn't care if Kate heard him or not, Gibbs forced himself to think of something new they could do to find him. His desk was covered in reports of possible sightings, none of which had so far led anywhere, and right now they were just as clueless about Tony whereabouts as they were two days ago when they first discovered him missing.

Running a hand through his hair Gibbs picked up a print out of the Missing Person's Bolo they'd issued and sent to every police precinct from here to New York. He stared long and hard at the photo, a candid shot of him smiling taken at last year's Agency Christmas party. They'd purposefully not used his ID so as not to advertise he was a federal agent on the off chance his disappearance had nothing to do with his being an Agent. They'd focused their efforts on the East Coast because they'd believed it possible his father or one of his less than reputable associates maybe involved. That was no longer a line of official inquiry since DiNozzo Sr. was out of the country, but Gibbs hadn't totally discounted the possibility personally. They hadn't informed him about Tony being missing, Gibbs was listed as Tony's next of kin anyway so he was under no obligation and what little dealings he'd had with the man suggested he wouldn't give a damn anyway so he didn't see the point in wasting those valuable minutes.

Thinking about valuable minutes wasted, up until receiving that video in the mail today they hadn't any evidence to suggest Tony _had_ been abducted. He picked up the missing poster again eyes targeting the very last line that read 'Your family just want to know you are safe... ' It was a standard line on all missing person's bolos to encourage runaways and those choosing to disappear to make contact with their families, but Gibbs knew it was pointless on this one, as the appearance of the tape now proved. Others, the Director included had tried to suggest to him DiNozzo had simply met a girl and slept in when Monday had rolled around and Tony hadn't shown his face by 8am. Gibbs had held firm with Morrow though and insisted that wherever he was, Tony was in trouble, because he knew DiNozzo wouldn't just not show up and let them, let _him_, worry. For as much as he played the oblivious fool and as often as Gibbs pretended not to give a damn they did have a basic understanding of each other's feelings, even if they hadn't acknowledged them to each other yet. Tony was the reason rule #3 existed after all.

Sitting back in his chair it didn't matter how long he stared at Tony's bolo, nothing new came to mind and all he achieved by glaring at the smiling face was an ache inside his chest so deep it gave the grand Canyon a run for its money. He was definitely feeling disconcerted and, sadly enough, this wasn't new territory for him either. It was becoming par for the course since DiNozzo had joined his team. WheneverTony got in a mess Gibbs always experienced some level of anxiety, despite knowing he could take care of himself on the job. Off the job was a different story however, one he didn't want his head to get into right now, for he feared the two had merged this time and if that was the case Tony DiNozzo Jr. was in a lot more trouble than Gibbs was prepared to face right now.

"Leads?" Gibbs barked into the ever increasing silence, despite it being only him and Kate in the bullpen.

He looked up to find her still stood by the plasma, eyes soft, offering sympathy. "We _will_ find him Gibbs."

He wanted to yell at her, tell her to stop profiling _him_ and get on with her job of catching the bad guys, but Kate said it with such conviction Gibbs had to question who she was actually trying to convince. Looking closer, noting the dark rings around her eyes and the extra creases in her forehead, he could see she was on the verge of a breakdown too and was offering them both a lifeline they sorely needed.

"Yeah," he nodded, taking a moment to breathe, to pull himself together, "so why do I feel like I'm not doing enough?"

His voice was so quiet _he_ barely heard it and raising his eyes to meet Kate's they ended up staring at each other for what felt like hours. Seeing in each other's gaze the fear that this time they may lose him and neither of them had a clue as how to feel about that. It was one of _the_ most open moments he'd ever had with a junior agent. Keeping her gaze he communicated his own distress in one long look and for once didn't feel at all ashamed for it. Any other agent might have been uncomfortable and turned away, but not Kate.

His relationship with her was different than with Tony or Abby, with them he was always in control, the patriarch who was strong and reliable. They looked up to him, Tony especially, and trusted him with some of _the _most personally details of their lives. If Tony was ever in trouble Gibbs knew he would come to him in a heartbeat. That was how he knew whoever had Tony now this had come out if the blue, because if Tony had been in trouble or was being threaten he'd have already known all about.

Kate was different because he knew despite a vast difference in experience between them she saw herself as his equal, often in detriment to DiNozzo who acted like an eager to please puppy a lot of the time. But although he didn't agree with her methods sometimes or appreciate her interpersonal skills those weren't why he'd hired her, she had the drive to become a successful investigator one day. What he needed to ensure was that she didn't end up like another ex-Probie of his, one who made a few too many sacrifices, not to save a life or do the right thing, but to forward her own career and climb the promotional ladder.

"Gibbs?" another female voice called from the side-lines, breaking the moment of joint quiet contemplation.

They turned in unison, both recognising the voice and both just as surprised by the quiver they heard in it. Gibbs' anger, which had been well buried until now ebbed up a notch upon setting eyes on the woman whom had caused a ripple of discontent through his team since crossing paths with her not so long ago.

"Agent Cassidy," Kate answered cordially when he remained purposefully silent.

"I want to help," she said steadily, the quiver now under control. "I heard about Tony and-"

"What do you mean you heard? What did you hear?" Gibbs snapped at her, standing and sending his chair flying into the divide behind with an audible thud.

He was pissed that rumours about Tony where already circling NCIS, like he was a hot topic of gossip to be talked about this week and forgotten the next. Cassidy was supposed to be Agent Afloat for Christ sake, there was no reason for her to have found out anything!

"He's been missing four days Gibbs, the whole Agency knows," Cassidy took a step closer to them. "I can help…_please_."

"We could use the help Gibbs." Kate interjected soberly, no doubt reading the wild look in his eye that said he was spoiling for a fight, one he could actually win and Cassidy had just offered herself to him like a lamb to the slaughter.

He stared at the pair of them, Cassidy averted her gaze, but Kate… she stood there, looking simultaneously sympathetic and determinedly pissed off, a paused image of Tony with sad resigned eyes behind her on the big screen. It was moments like this that Kate reminded him of the dutiful wife, one who kept all her personal feelings buried deep and put on airs for appearances sake or more likely in this case the greater good. It was an unfair analogy, Kate was far more than simply dutiful, but that was how she often seemed. As far as Cassidy was concerned, had he been thinking logically he would have seen straight away that having another set of eyes on the case was a good thing, but right in that moment all he saw was the woman who messed with Tony's head and heart.

In the end it was the watery quality to her voice when she asked him again to let her help them that made his mind up. Next to crying woman, Gibbs hated begging woman most. Their sincerity wasn't to be trusted, maybe too many wives' had made him overly sensitive to manipulation, but, though it pained him, he still couldn't deny the truth of her and Kate's argument. They needed the help - Tony was running out of time.

"Fine," he groused turning his back on her to look at the last image of Tony they had.

"So what have you got so far?" Cassidy asked her tears suddenly forgotten, she didn't go so far as to smile though, good thing too otherwise he'd have definitely kicked her out.

Gibbs looked to Kate who was continuing to tread carefully around him, but since he knew he'd been extremely hard to live with these past few days he let her get away with it and remained silent as he watched her pick up the clicker.

"Tony was officially declared missing when he didn't show up for work on Monday," Kate began, bringing up a timeline of Tony's last movements. "Gibbs last saw him Friday at five when he left NCIS and according Tony he was going home to get ready for a date. This tape was sent to NCIS today. It's time stamped 4:22am Saturday."

"What's he saying at the end there?" Cassidy asked, taking the clicker off Kate and pausing the screen just before it turned to snow.

"Not your fault." Gibbs sighed with a heavy heart, without looking up from his reading of one of the latest supposed sightings of Tony, this time in Baltimore.

"Excuse me?" Cassidy reared on him, obviously making an assumption about his meaning.

Gibbs growled and threw down the pen he'd been holding, "Tony! He's saying _'not your fault'_"

"What does that mean?"

"Well gee Agent Cassidy I guess that's something we should find out, but I'm betting there's a good chance he's talking to me."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because," Gibbs stood and walked around his desk, snatching the clicker from her and replaying it, "the last word he starts to say before getting cut off is _'boss'_…"

Giving both women a pointed look Gibbs threw the clicker onto the spare desk opposite him and stomped off towards the elevators.

.

"When did Gibbs have to the time to learn to read lips?" Cassidy asked into lingering silence consuming them after Gibbs' sudden angry departure.

"When does Gibbs have the time to do anything?" Kate threw back with a sigh returning to her desk. "He's always at work, I'd be surprised if he even has a home to go to."

She was of course referring to the fact that Gibbs was always the last leave, but also always already at work when she arrived the following morning and given the hours they worked were not the most socially friendly she could easily imagine, being the happy in a wooden hut type of guy that he was, he'd see paying rent as a extraneous expense not to be bothered with. The idea made her smile and she held onto it, boxing the feeling away to drag out later when day four of Tony's disappearing act officially closed without a new lead.

Sitting down Kate found a report of a sighting of Tony in Baltimore leaning against her monitor that hadn't been there a minute ago. She assumed Gibbs had left it for her to follow up, so pulled over her phone and began dialling the Baltimore P.D who had forwarded it to them. It took her nearly twenty minutes to get put through to the right department, but it was well worth the wait…

"Gibbs!" Kate jumped up from her desk as he walked in at the exact moment she was hanging up. "They've found Tony's car!"

Gibbs seemed to misstep for a second, but then his smooth stride continued, not drawing attention to the fact the news had temporarily thrown him.

"Where?"

"Outside a nightclub on East of Chase street," She smiled giddily, looking down at the notes she'd made.

"Club la Vita," Cassidy said matter of fact.

Gibbs and Kate both looked at her.

"I've been there, Tony too." She shrugged. "It's a good place to fly solo."

Gibbs shook his head, but he was not amused. It was hard enough for him to acknowledge there were similarities between Tony and Cassidy on a normal day, he didn't need it being thrown in his face right now. Maybe that was another reason he didn't like her, she was a player and Tony, despite what he claimed really wasn't. Tony liked safety was all and younger women who aren't after commitment are the safest you can get when a lasting relationship is the last thing on your mind. That didn't make him a player - that made him scared to get hurt again. With Cassidy he had seen from the get go Tony's attraction to her, just like he'd sensed that she was inevitably going to break his heart. It didn't take Kate calling him out on his own behaviour in Guantanamo for Gibbs to recognise he was overstepping his bounds as Tony's boss, but he'd experienced the kind of pain that comes from a relationship destined to end badly and if Gibbs could spare Tony from feeling anything close to that he was willing to do whatever it took, even if it meant taking a more interfering role in Tony's personal life and Tony hating him for a while.

Gibbs chuckled lightly to himself. Now he thought about it Ducky was right, Tony really was a lot like him, right down to making the same mistakes with women he had, but despite the many qualities he and DiNozzo shared, the difference was he'd fell in love and settled down at a young age, had a family, whereas DiNozzo had been introduced to sexual relationships in all the wrong ways and never had the parental role models he'd had to be able to form a healthy functioning relationship, let alone sustain one.

"Well I don't think it was part of his date, the girlfriend said they had reservations at Madam Vies for eight but he never showed." Kate went on, mindless of where Gibbs' thoughts had taken him.

"What else did she say?" Cassidy asked and Gibbs thought he detected a note of jealously in her tone.

"That was it, she didn't even know his last name and I doubt very much she could even spell kidnapping," Kate answered, managing a dig at DiNozzo's choice of date even now, though Gibbs suspected it was out of comfort rather than spite.

"So we don't know if he intentionally stood up his date and went to the club instead or if he was taken to Baltimore for another reason."

"But when he left he told Gibbs he was getting ready for his date…"

"So he didn't plan to stand her up. Something must have happened between five and Eight last Friday for his plans to have changed, but what?"

Neither Agent had noticed Gibbs had dropped himself out of their conversation and was looking intently at his computer until he rose from his desk and stood behind them, making them jump.

"That _Agent Cassidy_ is what we are trying to find out." He snapped storming off, grabbing something from the printer before heading for the rear elevators, "Kate!"

"Going to club la Vita Gibbs," Kate dropped the clicker and without pause dragged Cassidy away with her.

.

"Do you think Tony's okay?" Cassidy asked Kate once they were driving.

"Gibbs would know if he wasn't," Kate repeated what Gibbs had told her earlier in the week when she'd asked the same thing.

She still wasn't convinced Tony wasn't just at the mercy of some crazy girlfriend, though the tape, sent to them anonymously kind of debunked that. In fact the fact that its Baltimore his car ended up in suggested a connection to his days as a detective, someone looking for a bit of revenge maybe? Gibbs probably had Abby running that possibility right now, but reached for her cell phone anyway just in case he hadn't thought about that. She did wonder why he'd stayed behind, if the club was where Tony was last seen then surely he'd want to be there himself to interrogate those present… Kate paused, phone in her hand, finger hovering above the speed-dial. Something didn't sit right. Gibbs would never chose to stay behind if he thought Tony was still in Baltimore, which meant he didn't think much of the lead. She was confident he wouldn't send them on a wild goose chase to waste their time, but clearly he had more of an idea of what was going on than he was letting on, which pissed her off even more and when she discovered the truth she was going to make sure he knew it too.

.

"Duck!" Gibbs charged into autopsy.

"We found him Jethro?" Ducky appeared hopeful practically jumping out from between autopsy tables to greet him at the door, but his optimistic countenance dissolved upon seeing Gibbs' face. "You look like a ghost."

Gibbs handed over the print out of an email he'd received, he'd not said anything to Kate and Cassidy because he believed he knew who sent it and if he was right they were not just running out of time to find Tony, he knew there was no way they'd be able to find him on their own.

"Look familiar?"

Ducky took the note hesitantly and read the few words.

"Oh Jethro," he said with the same fear in his voice that Gibbs felt in his heart.

Even he felt like crying at thought of Tony, _his_ Tony, being held captive by the same man who caused so many so much heartache over ten years ago.

"He has him Ducky." Gibbs said simply, barely holding himself together, on the outside at least, inside he was already a mess.

"I thought the FBI said he'd died?"

"_Thought _he died Duck… we didn't get any more bodies, just means he could have gotten better at hiding them," He snapped, annoyed that he was as guilty as the FBI in being too quick to accept that explanation.

Gibbs took the email back and charged towards the door, only stopping short when Ducky shouted after him.

"Anthony's been missing four days Jethro!"

"I know!" He shouted back, foot stopping short of crossing the threshold into the corridor.

"He only keeps them alive for five."

"I know Duck," Gibbs sighed, turning back around to face the M.E letting the doors shut behind him, "but he also only took college kids last time, he's gone against type."

"To punish you," Ducky cut to the chase of what he believed Gibbs was thinking. "If you're hoping he's changed his MO entirely that is extremely unlikely, you know that."

"I know Tony's still alive," Gibbs told him, knowing how desperate he sounded but not caring. "I know it."

Ducky nodded, clearly not wanting to take his hope away just yet. Though Gibbs could see in his eyes, he had his doubts.

"Have you told Katelyn?"

"Not yet, sent her and Cassidy to trace the tape. Need to do something first." Gibbs quickly set his shoulders and put his stern mask back on.

"Jethro, this isn't your fault." Ducky call after him again as he tried to leave.

"I know that too Duck," He called back, this time walking out of sight into the corridor, "Tony told me…"

A/N: sorry for any mistakes, it's been a rush edit to meet my own crazy deadline so I hope nothing too bad. Part 2 to follow tomorrow… pinky swear;)

.


	4. 2003 part2

A/N: warning character cameo's contained within. I don't own those either;)

.

Gibbs returned to the bullpen in time to catch sight of his phone vibrating on the desk. It stopped as soon as he picked it up. Checking the caller I.D he read 'Todd' and according to the little number at the side of her name she'd called him at least five times already. Throwing his phone back down so it hit the desk with a loud clank Gibbs decided he'd already broken rule #3 so another couple of minutes wouldn't hurt. It wasn't good news, and he knew this because if it were both Ducky and Abby would be in the bullpen right now celebrating since Kate would've called them after the first time he didn't answer. The only other reason she would be calling would be to tell him they hit a dead end and were coming back. Just as he expected them too.

Sitting down at his desk, falling into his chair like the weight of the world was pressing down so hard on his shoulder's he could no longer hold up under the pressure, Gibbs pulled the email out of his pocket and laid it next to the Missing person bolo which was still face up on his desk. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew he wasn't going to get Tony back safe on his own. They needed help, help from outside NCIS. That singular email which instructed 'he who sins is he who must be punished for he is the sinner' was undoubtedly rhetoric nonsense. A paraphrased biblical instruction that was nowhere to be found within any known version of the bible. He knew this because he'd looked. Ten years ago, one of the last cases he'd worked alongside Mike Franks before he retired, he'd worked a case where typed notes just like this were left pinned to several bodies within the D.C area. The first two were within NCIS jurisdiction, but the following none Navy related killings put the case in the purview of the F.B.I. and thus Gibbs had his first taste of _positive_ interagency co-operation.

_**1992…**_

"_Are you Gibbs?"_

"_Who's asking?" Gibbs stood from his desk and eyed the very serious looking man before him._

"_I'm from the BAU," he flashed him an FBI badge, holding it out for a lengthy inspection._

_Gibbs quirked a smile, assessing the guy that was dressed a neat as a pin, all in black with his gun clearly visible under his jacket and seemed incapable of any expression beyond a frown. Mike was out, and not that he didn't know what he was doing, but he'd been warned that the FBI didn't make courtesy calls, which meant this guy was after something, something they probably wouldn't want to give up. He squinted at the badge, giving it a good time wasting look._

"_What can I do for ya…" Gibbs took his time to pretend to read the name again, "Hotch?" He finished with a wink and a sarcastic smile._

_Not even a wrinkle. His face remained impassive, letting piss-taking of his name go over his head. Gibbs was mildly impressed by his stamina if nothing else. He couldn't imagine holding a glare for that long. It at least meant if was being forced to work with the FBI, which he'd already gathered was the point of this visit, he had a good feeling about this guy._

"_You have two dead sailors and we have three dead civilians in the space of less than a month. I'm not here to take the case I want to catch this un-sub before he goes off the map, which we believe once he's done with his spree he will, until next time and then the only way we'll know is when more bodies show up." Hotch looked at him, face still impassive, not even giving a twitch during his spiel. _

"_So you want us to work together?" Gibbs laughed. He couldn't wait for Mike to meet this guy._

_But just when he thought he had his number FBI Agent Aaron Hotchner cracked a smile, not a wide one by any means, but enough to be classed as definitely not a frown._

"_You up for that Agent Gibbs?"_

"Gibbs? Gibbs? GIBBs!"

Pulled out of the memory Gibbs slowly looked up from staring at his desk to find Abby standing in front of him looking worried.

"Are you okay?" She asked quietly, too quietly for her.

Just looking at her face he knew that she knew and knowing what _he _had to do, without saying a word reached for his phone.

.

"Agent Hotchner" Gibbs greeted him as he entered the bullpen.

"It's good to work with you again," Hotch returned Gibbs' sad smile "I just wish it was under better circumstances."

"Yeah you and me both," he agreed.

Hotch followed Gibbs' gaze over his shoulder and nodded for the kid hanging back to step forward.

"What can we do?"

"I got this today," Gibbs face turned serious and grabbed the email from his desk. "Tony's not been seen alive since Saturday," he didn't need to explain the significance of the time.

The timid kid took the note without pause, his lips moving as he read it. Hotch gave it a cursory glance and nodded.

"Certainly looks like the originals. A copycat?"

"Nah, this is him, I feel it."

"It's been ten years, why now?"

"I don't know," Gibbs shrugged, he knew they were grasping at straws here but straws were all they had. "You said yourself if we didn't catch him before his spree was over he could disappear."

"Ten years is a long gap, even for a serial killer especially one like we profiled."

"Actually the gap may not be significant at all, what triggered the original killings could be something completely random, though the fact that it's one of your team that's missing and the change of M.O from pinning the not on the body to sending it directly to the original lead Agent on the case suggests this is personal. Either the circumstances just weren't right until now or something has happened to trigger the unsubs psychopathic nature."

Gibbs stared in stunned silence at the skinny kid who looked completely nonplussed by his glare, and he thought DiNozzo had a problem shutting up. Hotch it seemed was completely used to it and with a understanding nod said,

"We'll do everything we can."

**.**

**24 hours later, Christmas Eve 2003…**

It was already dark when Gibbs got the call and snow, which had been falling for the last few hours, was newly settled still glistening on the ground, making his mad dash to the scene even more of death run than driving with him usually was. Ducky had wanted to go with him, but Gibbs had already been pulling out of Navy yard when he called to tell him what the F.B.I BAU team had discovered.

Pulling into the street what at first look appeared to be a festive circus of fairy lights and people full of Christmas cheer turned out to be the local P.D's armed response team, a mass of FBI Agents and SWAT personnel. He stopped the car, jumping out without even shutting the door the second it shifted into park and ran, flashing his badge to uniform on the perimeter. Nothing deterred him from his target as Gibbs made his way over to the people who he'd entrusted with Tony's life.

"We have eyes on the suspect." Parsons, the SWAT commander, said into his radio on his approach. "Do you have a shot?"

"Negative." A tinny voice echoed back.

Gibbs joined him in his crouch behind a cop car parked as part of a barricade around the suspect's house. It was old, run down and fairly secluded - just enough so that neighbours wouldn't expect to see you every day, but not so much that the local kids made up horror stories about you. The perfect place for a serial killer to retire as DiNozzo might say.

"What about Tony?" He asked taking the offered sight scope. He could see a single figure standing to the left of the bay window, the stiletto of a gun in his hands.

"No sign of your man yet Gunny," Parson's told him regretfully without taking his eyes off the house.

"Damn it." He growled in frustration.

"Gibbs?" Hotch appeared behind him, running over, "What are you doing here I told you we'd handle it."

Gibbs stood up and turned to face him. "You really expect me to hang back while my agent needs my help?"

"He knows there's no escape this time, he'll give up." Hotch tried to assure him.

"Or he'll shoot himself and the hostage." He shouted back.

"We not sure Agent DiNozzo is even in the house."

"So what _do_ you know?" Gibbs snapped, giving Hotch his best tell me now or die glare.

He was close to going postal himself, he'd spent the last twenty-four hours sitting on the side-lines being treated like the victim's family, going over and over again with Hotch's team the last time he'd seen Tony and the case he'd worked back in '93. The new team, Hotch being the only one who'd remained with the BAU since the joint investigation, formed a new profile to track down the serial murderer who apparently hadn't killed for ten years. Morrow had ordered him to turn everything over and he had done, on the condition Hotch called him the minute they were close.

"We believe its Oliver." Hotch paused to let him take that information in. "Two from my team went to interview him at the address you provided, but didn't even make it down the driveway before being shot at. They got out okay, but neither got a positive I.D on the shooter."

Gibbs took his glare off Hotch and stared at the house. He remembered interviewing Cain Oliver, he was a strong suspect, but the evidence hadn't been there and they'd had to let him walk. The killings stopped not long after and so they eventually had to move on. In the ten year gap they discovered Oliver had dropped off the map, no social security, no listings of any kind. He knew this because after handing everything over to the BAU he called Abby and had her tracking down every suspect they'd had. Oliver was only one of a too long list, but he had been the hardest to find. It had taken them twenty-four hours to locate the son of a bitch to this quiet suburban street in Baltimore. Twenty-four Tony didn't have.

"It's him." Gibbs muttered lowly. "And Tony's in there." He felt it in his gut.

Leaving the car near a place Tony often frequented if Cassidy was to be believed was just part of the bastard's mind games. Whatever his motives for doing this now instead of years ago, he'd done his research, taking Tony proved that. Although he was right about Tony not fitting his original victim type of college kid that was his type ten years ago, when Tony _was_ a college kid. If his victims aged with him then DiNozzo was a match and just like the skinny kid had said only less long winded, his connection to Gibbs wasn't a coincidence.

Making a sudden decision not to make Tony wait any longer he dropped the vest one of the Agents had handed him as soon as he entered the crime scene, secured his weapon and stormed past the barricades daring any of the SWAT team to try and stop him.

"Gibbs!" Hotch called after him.

He heard Parson's curse and order his men to cover him, saw Hotch shaking his head out the corner of his eye but Gibbs kept walking, right up to the house and through the front door. He paused in the entrance hall, having made it inside without challenge he removed his gun from his belt and steadily made his way forward to the room at the front only to come face to face a man he remembered looking a lot, lot younger the last time they'd met.

"I look just like him, don't I Agent Gibbs?" The tall stocky man now in his earlier thirties leaned casually against the wall next to the window, being careful enough not to stand directly in front of it.

"Where's my Agent?" Gibbs snapped getting to the point, ignoring the significance of who he was actually talking to.

Within half a second of his demand Hotch entered the room behind him, weapon drawn and stood at his side, the look of disproval he shot him communicating exactly what he thought of this course of action. Gibbs nodded his approval anyway, but Hotch never saw it since he was staring in surprise at the young man banishing the weapon before them.

"You know I never could work out what made him so angry all those years, you know when he was torturing and killing kids just like me, it didn't make sense." The man leaning in the corner, now twirling the revolver between his fingers, chuckled.

"Doesn't have to make sense, Tommy" Gibbs pushed making it clear he knew exactly who he was talking to.

"Oh but Gibbs it does." Tommy grinned, his tone starting out playful but escalating to erratic with every word he spoke, "he hated me. He wanted me dead. But he never laid a god damn finger on me!"

"You're his son, his own flesh and blood. He couldn't hurt you so he hurt those that resembled you." Hotch answered, aiming to sympathise with him.

"Surrogates I believe you call them don't you agent Hotchner?" Tommy's smile was twisted, part sad and part… feral was the best he could describe. "Very interesting stuff this profiling, I've learnt a lot from your friend's books," he winked.

Hotch gave Gibbs a telling look, they were clearly missing something here.

"Where is your father Tommy? We can help you if you tell us where we can find him and the man we believe he is holding hostage." Hotch took a step forward.

Tommy, who had been staring at the gun in his hands, looked up sharply and glared.

"He's dead." Gibbs stated, reading the look in Tommy's eye. His gut had gone into overdrive the minute he clapped eyes on the young man who had been just a kid when they first met and he'd just worked out why. "You killed him didn't you?"

Tommy nodded, feral smile taking over the sad part of his face, "It was self-defence," he shrugged as if it was nothing, "he tried to kill me first, apparently God had told him I was an evil sinner and it was time he took care of me."

"You're not evil Tommy, your Dad was the killer not you, you were just the object of his rage." Hotch tried to reason.

"I was the object of nothing in his life!" Tommy shouted suddenly, "Nothing! He didn't even acknowledge I was alive."

"You done?" Gibbs quipped, shutting him down after the mini tantrum.

He wasn't interested in his sorry life story, he just wanted his agent back alive and he wasn't going accept anything less.

"No I'm not done!" Tommy pointed the gun at Gibbs, "I've only just started."

Gibbs grit his teeth, "Where's Agent DiNozzo?"

Tommy laughed, leaning forward with a snide grin on his face he whispered "You're too late. Again."

"You son of a bitch-"

"Gibbs!" Hotch flung an arm across his chest, preventing him from grabbing Tommy Oliver by the throat, but it was pointless. No sooner had he utter the words Tommy raised the gun and turned it on himself, pulling the trigger. Sending blood and brain matter over the wall behind him.

Within seconds of the shot being heard SWAT stormed the house. Gibbs cleared the weapon, not that there was a chance of Tommy using it again mind you, and stared at the body of the kid they'd tried and clearly failed to save ten years ago, then his mind reset and focused on another kid, one he hoped like hell he could still save.

"Search the house Tony's here somewhere." He said determinedly.

"Do it." Hotch reiterated the order when Parson's looked at them both like they were crazy to think it would be that easy.

A few of Parson's men gathered and receiving silent instruction stormed the old house looking for any sign of a trap door or hidden cupboard that could be used to stash a body, alive or otherwise.

"Gibbs!" Parson's called after a quick search of the kitchen.

Gibbs came running to discover a locked door in the back of the pantry.

Thinking of the tape, a room without widows…"This place have a cellar?"

Not waiting for someone to get a cutter Gibbs removed his weapon and shot out the lock, kicking at the door until it gave way. He insisted on going first down the newly revealed staircase. The damp walls matched the colour of those that they'd seen on the tape sent to NCIS and his heart started pounding in his chest. They reached another locked door at the bottom, cutting them off from the rest of the basement. This one also had chain with a padlock and he was about to shoot that off too ricochets be damned when someone barged past him with a pair of bold cutters. He nodded his thanks as they cut through the metal as if it were paper and stood back, allowing him to open the door.

He gave it a push and the door swung slowly inwards, releasing the unmistakeable smell of dead bodies. Though he'd seen plenty of dead people in some awful states he wanted to gag right now from fear alone, but forced himself to keep it together. He would be damned if he wasn't going to be the one to find Tony now.

And find him he did. Eyes closed, arms folded neatly across his chest lying in the middle of the dark, damp and cold basement on a visibly stained mattress supported by an old metal framed bed. Neither had been present in the short film they'd been sent. Another thing that was different was that Tony had been stripped of his own clothes and redressed in a long dirty white hospital gown. He was still pink in colour, although his nails showed crescents of blue around the cuticle. Cyanosis Ducky would have told him had he been here to view the body.

Gibbs knelt down next to him, reaching under the IV line trailing from his arm attached to a still full bag of unidentified fluid and took hold of Tony's so very cold hand. Moving his fingers across the wrist Gibbs pinched the arteries. And under his thumb and forefinger he felt a faint but definitely rhythmic thump, thump.

"Gibbs?" Hotch questioned worriedly from behind, the others flooding into the room one by one.

It took a while for him to find his voice, chocked up all he could manage was a husky "He's alive."

"We need a medic down here!" Hotch shouted to the Agent hanging back by the stairs.

The message was passed on, voices getting more and more animated around him, but Gibbs couldn't make out much of what anyone was saying, he refused to take his eyes or hand off Tony out of fear that he'd wake up at his desk to discover this was all a cruel dream. Blood was rushing so fast through his head making its own thump thumping sound so loud he was surprised it was wasn't coming out of his ears, until he felt a hand on his shoulder and he pulled away, the noise receding enough to let the commotion around him register.

"It's a sedative." Hotch came up on Gibbs side, pointing at the IV.

Gibbs didn't question how Hotch had come about that information. All he cared about was getting Tony out of there so wasted no time in pulling the tap out of his arm. He got a glare for his efforts from the medic who arrived, but in no way was he leaving it there to continue pumping god knows what into his already weaken body. The agent holding the bolt cutters used them again to release Tony where his feet where chained to the bed and ignoring the sore red skin around his ankles Gibbs looped one arm under his back, the other under his legs and picked him up, quickly transferring Tony to the waiting stretcher that had been brought down to take him to hospital.

The medic's went about securing him for transport after rechecking his vitals and Gibbs spent that time inches from Tony's face, willing him to wake up by patting his cheek repeatedly.

"Tony," he hissed, "DiNozzo!" he shouted more loudly.

Eventually Gibbs gave in and smacked him, rather lightly, around the head. Tony's eyes snapped open in a flash.

"Boss" he croaked and as sappy as it sounded it was the sweetest sound Gibbs had heard in days.

"Right here Tony, you're going to be alright." He tapped his shoulder ignoring his confused frown and nodded to the medics that they were ready to get moving.

Gibbs followed them up the stairs, Hotch following close behind and he was about to thank the Agent for his help when Tony's tired and confused voice travelled back to him.

"On it, boss!"

_**.**_

_**Christmas day morning 2003…**_

Hotch walked into the bullpen, his stride a lot more relaxed than when he'd walked in over forty-eight hours ago.

"Agent DiNozzo," he greeted stopping temporarily in front of Tony's desk, "Glad to see you well."

"Good to be well…." Tony's frown just about said it all.

"Agent Hotchner, Agent doctor Reid" he pointed at the young man that had followed him in.

"Sorry, memories still a bit fuzzy," Tony smiled shyly.

"Hotch," Gibbs waved at him from the stairs, picking up his pace up to join them.

He stuck out his hand and directed them over to his desk, a smile a mile wide on his face. "I owe you one." He said with sincerity as they shook.

"You're welcome, I'm glad it ended well." He said, glossing over their dead unsub. "And your Agent seems to be doing okay considering?"

"He doesn't remember a thing," Gibbs sighed quietly, part amazed and very thankful.

"That's not surprising you see the sedative Tommy was using was one being trialled by the pharmaceutical firm he was transporting for, the dosage he was using was quite low, enough to keep him unconsciousness without permanently damaging any of his organs. Of course long term exposure would most undoubtedly be fatal -"

"He was very lucky," Hotch interrupted after what he deemed a respectful amount of time to let Reid get to his point.

He didn't want to disparage the young agent, but at the same time he needed to learn the concept of less is more, he would need to have a word with Gideon as soon as possible.

"I am surprised they let him go so quickly."

"Ah well, that's our Anthony," The doctor who Hotch remembered from ten years ago showed up, stepping into their conversation with ease. "Doctor Mallard." He introduced himself.

"I remember," Hotch nodded.

"And Anthony was indeed very lucky." The doctor turned and gave the object of their conversation an indulgent smile. "We definitely owe you our thanks for bringing him home."

Gibbs hustle the doctor away, but he didn't go far. Little black bag in hand he stopped at Agent DiNozzo's desk and began what was probably the young man's hundredth check-up since being released.

"We thought you'd like to know," Hotch started as Gibbs walked with them back towards the elevators, "Tommy had a girlfriend, and she's pregnant."

"We believe it to be the trigger to his behaviour." Reid added, not sounding at all put off by Hotch's earlier mild reprimand. "Knowing he was to become a parent and fearing he'd turn into his own father-"

"Turned him into his father," Gibbs finished. He got it.

"Let's just hope with Tommy Oliver's suicide this ends here," Hotch offered his hand this time, bid a goodbye to Gibbs, doctor Mallard, Tony and the other agent on Gibbs team and left.

.

After their FBI friends had left Gibbs eyes shifted slightly and he caught the flash of Ducky's gaze across the bullpen where he was still checking up on Tony. He knew that look, it meant things would be okay, but he was to tread carefully for a few days. He could do that. All of a sudden yelling at DiNozzo felt like the last thing he wanted to be doing, despite the fact that Tony was no different for all that had happened. He couldn't remember anything of the last five days. Seemed there were something's Tommy had taken with him to his grave. He could only thank god Tony wasn't one of them.

At least the reports would be interesting to read, though he wasn't looking forward to signing off on any of them. What may surprise some people is that was the part of the job Gibbs hated, though not for the obvious reasons. It was hard to understand unless you experienced it, but reading how one of his team were shot at, injured or kidnapped, quite often in DiNozzo's case, wasn't easy, even if they were sat at the desk across from him at the time of reading.

"Going to hit the head," he announced, not wanting to lament on it any longer, it was still Christmas and he was going to make sure they got home in time to finish the holiday off right. "Reports on my desk before you leave."

"I'm not sure what to put in mine boss." Tony's soft, yet honestly confused voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

Ducky and Kate were staring at him to.

"Well I don't remember any of it." He shrugged, the hoarseness of his voice his only souvenir from his time with Tommy Oliver, "last thing I remember is leaving work… then nothing."

Gibbs thought about it for about a second.

"Then write that." He shrugged, palms out like he didn't think it was that a hard a thing to work out, and continued out of the bullpen.

.

Gibbs and Ducky gone Tony frowned at his computer screen. A few hours was all the hospital kept him, after they'd administered a course of IV fluids and nutrients Tony proved he could eat a meal and manage not to throw up so they'd had little choice but to let him go when he demanded it. Gibbs had waited at the hospital with him and Tony had loved the look of surprise on his face when Tony had strolled out in some scrubs and flashed him his walking papers. He didn't question him, but Tony figured Gibbs and Ducky knew he'd forced the doctor's hands, they just weren't balling him out for it this time. It had been clear on the drive back to the office, which was ominously silent that they'd all had a pretty sleepless and stressful week looking for him, so they probably didn't have the energy to fight with him right now. On the other hand, aside from some serious jetlag and a sore throat, Tony could barely tell the difference between this week and his last spring break trip. Both weeks were absent from his memory, though for very different reasons of course.

"You know what Kate, its a little disconcerting knowing I've lost nearly a week," Tony said trying to break the maudlin silence that had overtaken the office on what should be a happy day. "But on the bright side it's still Christmas! At least I didn't miss it - Oh, crap, I never got around shopping."

"What? You left it a week before Christmas to… oh never mind, I don't know why I expected anything else. I bet you're one of those that shop every year on Christmas Eve, or no… I bet you re-gift things." Kate grumbled, hitting her keyboard hard as she clicked print.

"It's charitable," Tony shrugged off her rant, thinking if she was ever going to cut him some slack it would be after surviving a potential serial killer.

"It's laziness" Kate shot back.

Tony frowned, but managed to hold his tongue. Ducky had left to close up autopsy and with no other witnesses getting one over on Kate now would be pointless. Likewise no one was here to see her rip him a new one for just breathing apparently, so he didn't care about that much either.

"So what did Paula say?" She asked after a moment's awkward silence where she must have sensed his juvenile resilience.

"About what?" Tony pretended he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Don't go all coy on me now DiNozzo, she was worried, really worried." Kate raised her eyebrows suggestively. "I saw you saying goodbye to her when you walked in."

"Ah I see, so because she was worried about me you think she wants to sleep with me, Gibbs was worried about me too!" He pointed out with a grin.

Gibbs of course chose this moment to reappear and Tony immediately dropped the smile and turning on his best 'boy who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar' look begged for forgiveness. Gibbs laughed and proceeded back to his desk.

"I was worried I'd have to train another agent, it's taken me two years to break you in," he teased, picking something off his desk before heading off towards Abby's lab or maybe autopsy.

Tony gave Kate a look of mock hurt to disguise the real hurt underneath. Kate collected her report from the printer and placed it on Gibbs' desk like he requested. She was in a hurry as she'd gotten a last minute flight to Indiana since the director had signed them off rotation for the rest of the week. Despite Tony insisting he was fine apparently it was not okay to come straight back to work. The only reason he was here now was because Gibbs had been his ride and the director had personally called to tell him he was to 'take his sick leave at home or he'd personally sign his commitment papers,' he'd then muttered something about crazy ass marines and hung up, seemed he liked his Christmas being interrupted as much as Tony did. Kate swiftly breezed out the office wishing Tony a merry Christmas, but not without dishing out a final dig that she was tired and unlike some hadn't been lying around like sleeping beauty all week. It came from love though, he was sure. Pretty sure anyway. Maybe it was 50/50.

Neither the less Tony found himself alone in the bullpen staring at the empty desks around him. The whole floor was deserted. And although this wasn't his first Christmas without anyone to spend it with, after he'd enjoyed the last two years with Gibbs and the others it felt rather sad. Of course last year had been down to a head injury really, that and being given some strong pain killers. He still couldn't think about what had happened again without blushing. And the year before Gibbs was probably just being nice because he was a Probie and had no one nearby, having only made the move to Washington that winter.

The bummer was that despite having been in a kidnappers clutches for four days he was pretty much healthy. There was no need for someone to stay with him this year, the fact he'd slept through the whole thing and remembered nothing meant he probably wouldn't even have nightmares. He did have friends and connections outside of NCIS, and maybe had he not been kidnapped would have made arrangements with some of them, but since he had he wasn't ringing around now begging for a last minute invite.

Logging on and looking at the state of his email inbox alone he realised he had a lot of catching up to do. Maybe he'd just stay here, sort things out so he didn't fall behind. Yeah that was a good plan.

A sudden smack to the back of his head had Tony near falling out his chair.

"You not ready yet DiNozzo?" Gibbs had stormed passed him and was packing up his stuff.

"Ready boss, for what?" Tony looked at him with bug eyes and saw Gibbs indicate they were to leave.

Tony looked at him, wide green eyes holding nothing back. When he received a small nod and a _'what do ya think DiNozzo?'_ He jumped up, a smile teasing his lips and grabbed his things, reaching Gibbs side before he left the bullpen.

"Good, we're meeting Abby and Ducky in an hour." Gibbs said walking towards the elevator, mentioning some restaurant he recalled Ducky raving about in the summer.

"Not cooking this year?" He asked, surprised, Gibbs never liked going out when staying in was just as good.

"Well no DiNozzo," Gibbs said with humour, turning to face him as he pressed the call button, "We lost something special a few days ago and spent all our time trying to find it so nobodies had the time to shop."

It was spoken in Gibbs' usually bark, but the words where unlike anything he'd heard him say before. The elevator doors opened, but Tony was still frozen in place, wondering if he really just heard what he thought he did. He didn't get long to think about it though, Gibbs was actually in the elevator and an irritated bark of _'DiNozzo'_ had him jumping in too, ready to face another Christmas day in the company of the people who were fast becoming his new family.

.

A/N: Hello, so I'm 40 min's late, but that's not all bad right? I hope this reads okay, I've not had a break from writing it to be able to review it as well as I like. Truth is this turned out to be much bigger than a oneshot and though I'm not overly enthused about how this second half turned out I wanted to stick to my promise to post today, after all Christmas 2004 is just round the corner! Hope it's not too disappointing. I've left some questions intentionally unanswered because I intend to follow up with how Tony got kidnapped later in this series so don't get cursing me out just yet ;D

As always thanks for reading, favouriting, following and of course reviewing! TTFN;)


	5. 2004

Season 2 Christmas 2004

_**Christmas Eve…**_

"Oh McGoo!"

"He's not here Tony." Kate drawls sensing trouble ahead.

She's so busy sorting her desk, getting everything squared away ready for the holidays that by the time she looks up to see what has him sniggering like a school boy it's too late to stop him.

"What is _that_?"

Well when she's right she's right, and _oh my god Gibbs is going to kill him_.

"It's a Christmas tree Kate." Tony stands on his tip toes to place a plastic star on its top, stepping back to admire his efforts.

"I can see that. Why is it on McGee's desk?"

"Because the Probie needs some Christmas cheer," he turns and glares at her like she's ruining all his Christmases at once.

Kate glares back, hands on hips as she watches him place an equally tacky dancing Santa next to the tacky silver tinsel tree, followed by a tiny reindeer and sleigh on top of his computer.

"Gibbs is going to kill you Tony." She warns, walking over to the fax.

She turns her back on him when he produces a can of fake snow, adamant to stay out of it this time. Whenever Tony pulls one of his stupid pranks Gibbs always manages to walk in at the exact moment she's given up trying to convince him it's a bad idea and joined the dark side.

"No, Gibbs is going to Kill _McGee_." He reply's with a devilish grin.

"So this isn't about McGee's Christmas cheer as much as it yours?" She says snidely, fax sent, turning back towards her desk.

He doesn't answer, not that she's surprised mind you, getting her and Tim in hot water with Gibbs was one of his favourite pastimes, topped only by his love of movies. "Where did you get it?" She sneers when his silence just about kills her, abandoning her plan to just stay out of it.

"I found it last night when I unpacked some more of my stuff I got out of storage." He says in awe of his majestic achievement.

"Wait," she pauses mid-air, her butt barely grazing the chair to sit, and walks back over to him. "You've lived in Washington over three years now and still haven't unpacked?"

"You think McGee's going to like it?" He asks excitedly completely ignoring her again.

"You actually expect him to be happy he has a giant tinsel tree taking over his desk?" She mentally kicks herself, realising she's just encouraging him by being defensive.

"Sure, why not?" Tony bounces excitedly back to his desk. "Come on, we need a tree. Don't you find it that little bit less unbearable to spend Christmas at work with a Christmas tree?"

"No," She says immediately, because sometimes she just can't help herself, "Christmas isn't about the tree, it's about charity and church and-"

"Presents and Santa and movies and-"

"Work!" Gibbs barks storming into the bullpen with his customary mid-afternoon coffee refill ending their escalating argument.

Kate quickly moves back to her desk and finds her emails extremely interesting whereas Tony's obviously so excited about the festive season he runs right up to Gibbs without regard for his own self-preservation.

"Now boss before you freak out," Tony begins.

Gibbs doesn't stop walking so Tony is essentially jogging backwards to his desk as he rushes to explain why there is a five foot fake fern complete with glitter and lights sitting upon McGee's desk. Gibbs comes to a halt right in front of it, staring at it like if it moved even an inch he was prepared to kill it.

"I don't want to know." He says flatly, whatever he's been doing until now obviously preoccupying him enough to not even have the energy to deal with one of DiNozzo's jokes this late in the day.

Gibbs starts walking again and settles down behind his desk, shooting a glare toward Tony that has him doing the same thing. Everyone's settled down to work when McGee finally returns and approaches the tree much like Gibbs did, only with less poise and instead of getting ready to kill McGee looks ready to run if it should suddenly attack. Without speaking he looks nervously around the bullpen, Kate's watching him over her note pad trying not to make it obvious that she's watching him, but his gaze doesn't linger on her, it falls on Tony.

"Tony?" he groans, staring at him.

Tony's on the phone and holds his hand out, giving him the universal gesture for 'just a sec' and bless him, McGee waits.

"Yes Probie, what's up?" He asks after nearly two minutes idle chat to whoever he'd speed dialled at the last minute to look busy, acting like nothing's out of the ordinary.

"There's a Christmas tree on my desk." McGee sounds strained, pointing at it, like maybe he thought no one else could see it.

"So there is," Tony smiles.

McGee looks confused, like he isn't sure whether Tony's being serious or disingenuous or just plain having a laugh at his expense. He'll learn the difference eventually, though it may take a few years. She's been at NCIS 18 months and still isn't sure what's going through Tony's head when he pulls crap like this. Kate suddenly realises she's fallen for another classic DiNozzo distraction. The tree, the extra dose of over the top excitement he's been unable to contain all week, it's all designed to hide what he's really feeling. It's so obvious she could kick herself for not seeing the signs early. It was typical of Tony to want them all annoyed with him so much that they'd actively leave him alone and not look too closely at the reasons why he was being an ass. And it didn't take a world class forensic scientist like Abby or a brilliant investigator like Gibbs to work out what could possibly be upsetting him this time. McGee however was going to be a different story, only three months on the team and he was still finding his feet.

Standing in the middle of the bullpen, frowning as Tony goes back to his work he looks about to ask another question when Gibbs slams his phone down and announces, "Dead marine, Rock Creek Park."

Everyone springs into action, the Christmas tree discussion, DiNozzo's behaviour and Kate's own revelation about it having to be put on hold for now.

"You know I'm going to have to start going to a different park, it has a higher murder rate than New York." Tony says to her as they quickly walk towards the elevator and he slips in last to stand next to Gibbs.

Gibbs doesn't even look at him when he replies, "Maybe you should stop playing on the swingsat all the parks."

.

They reach a secluded section of Rock Creek Park in time to see a fire truck leaving the scene.

"What happened?" Kate asks no one in particular as Gibbs parks their own truck and they all get out, "thought this was a body dump-"

"Is," a man, dressed in a fire-fighter jacket appears from out of the tree line and looks first directly at her with a smile and then turns to Tony. "You Gibbs?"

"That's me," Gibbs speaks up from behind still stood by the truck, Tony simple nods, smiles and points.

It happens a lot, Tony getting mistaken for being in charge, though Kate supposes that with his mouth shut and stood fairly still Tony does at least look the part of team leader. They wait in the freezing cold by the edge of the road, near a narrow path with plenty of dirty trodden in snow which they can only assume is the direction they will find their, while Gibbs talks with their surprise guest. McGee catches them up, kicking snow as he drags his feet carrying all three heavy equipment bags as well as his own pack. Getting McGee to carry their stuff was a part of the hazing she didn't mind too much. DiNozzo had done it to her plenty of times, or tried at least, she usually managed to work it to her advantage and get him back, unlike poor McGee who hadn't quite worked out how to beat the two of them yet. He'd been foolish enough to believe all this would stop once Gibbs offered him a permanent place on the team.

"Sorry who _are_ you?" Kate asks the fire-fighter who is walking back over to them.

She can hear Tony sniggering next to her, making a juvenile comment to McGee about her and men in uniform, but sees fit to ignore him. Instead Kate smiles brightly when he once again catches her eye.

"Neil," he answers without stopping, guiding them into the trees. Gibbs follows him and like children to the piped piper so do they. "We were called to deal with a small bonfire that got out of control, but I called you guys as soon as we found him."

"Who?" McGee speaks up from the back, dropping a bag each time he stumbles in the deepening snow, but managing to collect it again and not fall too far behind.

Kate turns and takes a bag from him to lighten his load. Hazing is funny when he it doesn't impede their progress and with snow already at the tops of her boots Kate doesn't want to be hanging around this crime scene longer than she has to be. The path is pretty non-existent now and her feet are sinking deeper and deeper. Kate already knows her boots are going to be ruined after this little trek.

"Him," Neil points to the body lying face down in the snow, still visible so they knew he'd not been there very long, "I saw the tags and called you guys."

He smiles at her and Kate can't help but smile back at the rather good looking rugged features, not her normal type, but Abby's always saying she needs to move away from the boring lawyer types.

"And who called _you_ out here?" Tony questions him, sounding suspicious.

"Like I was telling your boss, I came out to get the preliminaries on the fire after the crew put it out. We've had a few call outs in the last week. Kid's think just because it's cold camp fire don't spread."

"Well they got that wrong," Gibbs says lightly and mostly to himself, looking at the damaged area just fifty or so feet from where they're standing.

"The crew got another call, but I'll be around securing the area for at least the next thirty, anything I can do just holler,"

"Appreciate it," Gibbs nods.

Neil winks at Kate as he walks away and she feels completely powerless to stop the beaming smile from breaking out on her face.

"He doesn't look crispy," Tony comments on the body pulling out his camera and hooking it around his neck.

"DiNozzo, Kate shoot and sketch, McGee surface evidence now, let's not make this last all day." Gibbs as usual ignores the comment.

"So do you think whoever set the fire killed the petty officer?" Kate asks joining Gibbs and Tony by the body, removing her warm gloves and replacing them with the thin latex crime scene ones.

"Bad job if they did considering the fire started over there." Tony points out the direction Neil their very friendly fire-fighter left.

"Maybe that was the point?" Kate challenges, "To not make it too obvious."

"If it was they knew nothing about fire," Gibbs agrees with Tony for a change.

She doesn't refute Gibbs knows about fire, but does notice the look Tony and he share, it isn't smug, far from it actually, Tony looks pained and Kate thinks she's never seen that look on him before. Gibbs' expression was giving nothing away as per usual, but there was definitely something going on between them right now that she wasn't privy too.

"Oh hello," Tony calls, breaking into her thoughts. "Looks like our petty officer had some company."

"You're a pig." Kate states adamantly when he snaps a picture and then with one gloved hand shows them the ladies panties he's found under the body.

"Di-_Nozzo_," Gibbs sighs in what can only be described as utter frustration and tosses him an evidence bag.

Kate shivers, the sun having set very quickly on their trip up here and what little light left upon arrival had since disappeared so they were essentially stood in the middle of a wooded area, in the dark, snow a foot deep on the ground, with a dead body.

"Great," she mutters under her breath, rubbing her hands together, thinking of the warm woollen gloves encased in her pocket, wishing they hadn't pulled the short straw to cover the holidays again this year.

"Something wrong _Agent Todd_?" Gibbs says her name in the same manner he just said Tony's.

"Of course not Gibbs," She smiles and brushes off his scowl.

Kate was beginning to think Gibbs wasn't a fan of Christmas. He'd been grumpy for days now. Last Christmas he'd been the same, but she'd put that down to Tony being extra annoying pretty much since Thanksgiving and then getting himself kidnapped the week before. This year Tony was just as annoying, the tree on McGee's desk being only a small example of his enthusiasm for the season, but it was Christmas Eve and he was as yet to get himself into any trouble. In fact since going AWOL with Jeffrey White ten days ago he'd been pretty good at staying out of trouble, though that probably had more to do with Gibbs keeping him on a very short leash for the past week.

"Kate doesn't like the idea of outdoor sex boss," Tony says taking more pictures, the flash illuminating the area, reflecting off the snow, "I bet you're a log cabin, on the rug in front of the fire kind of girl, just like in those books you read in the bath."

"Tony!" she squeals before she can stop herself, and is about to ream him out for even thinking of where she likes to have sex when another more disturbing thought occurs to her. "How do you know what books I read in the bath?"

"I've been in your bathroom." He says with a shrug and a frown like the answer is obvious.

"_When?_"

"That time I picked you up from your place." He shrugs again without taking his eyes off his camera.

"Gibbs?!" She squeals, again falling for the ultimate distraction that is DiNozzo at his most intrusive and annoying.

"Kate, go help McGee!" Gibbs half barks, half sighs.

She's about to complain about how wholly unfair that is, Tony's the one being gross and invading her privacy and _she's_ the one being sent away? But in the end it's too cold to argue and arguing with Gibbs is pointless on a normal day. Tony has been tucked inside Gibbs' protective circle since the Jeffrey White case and she can tell by tone alone he won't be kicked out anytime soon. So being the bigger person she smiles pleasantly at Gibbs, making it clear this didn't bother her in the slightest, sticks her tongue out at Tony as soon as she's sure Gibbs isn't looking and grabs some evidence bags, turning to join Tim in collecting the evidence.

"Tony?" she asks in her most neutral tone, after turning around and scanning the immediate area. "Where's McGee?"

"He's right-" Tony cuts himself off upon turning and pointing at an empty space, "there. Huh. Boss McGee's missing!"

She hears Gibbs' groan of impatience and normally would be pleased DiNozzo was in for it instead of her, but right now she was actually concerned for Tim.

"Probie?" Tony calls, not quite as loud as he could but loud enough to be heard.

It's now she's realising just how quiet it is out here. Not even a bird is chirping in the blackness which is cold and silent. All three of them are staring into the dark when there's a sudden noise and then the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot. They all raise their weapons and run forward, Gibbs going first making sure her and Tony are behind him.

He reaches McGee first, who's lying in the snow, unmoving and if it wasn't so dark Kate would have seen there was no blood before her heart had a chance to leap into her throat.

"McGee?" Gibbs whispers, kneeling next to him, turning him over.

McGee sits up easily and without a scratch. "What happened?"

"That's what we should be asking you Probie," Tony adds, gun still raised and pointing into the surrounding blackness, listening for more strange sounds, waiting for something to jump out at them.

"I don't know, I was just collecting evidence when, I er I think someone hit me from behind." He touches the back of his head but it comes away clean – of blood at any rate.

"Well there's no one else out here except-"

"Kate's date." Tony finishes her sentence.

"What?" McGee frowns.

"He's not my date DiNozzo, I-"

"Enough," Gibbs growls, low in his throat, getting up from his crouch to glare at the pair of them.

Both her, and Tony look contrite and nod in agreement, now is certainly not the time. She scowls at Tony anyway and hopes whatever is bugging him he gets over it soon, because she's tired of being baited into a reaction so he can avoid his own problems.

But before anyone can say anything else they hear the sound of tires squealing and a car pulling away. Tony and McGee sprint in action immediately, Kate following close behind even though she knows it's too late. Neil's car is gone by the time they reach the road and looking at their truck titling to one side it's clear at least two tires have been slashed.

"Wonderful." She shoves her hands under her arm pits, just knowing her night was about to get so much worse.

"Fun times boss." Tony shouts breaking through the tree line and re-joining Gibbs back by the body. "We're kind of stuck out here."

"Let me guess, he slashed the tires," Gibbs drawls.

"Yeah," Tony looks at her accusingly and she shrugs, proving she was just as clueless as him.

"You knew Neil was involved." McGee asks being the only one still green enough to question Gibbs.

Luckily Gibbs' bad mood seems to have ebbed a bit, as instead of bawling him out he merely declines to answer. Kate senses something else affecting his mood still, but can't quite put her finger on it yet.

"So what are we going to do now?" She demands, shelving her side thoughts, opting to concentrate on the present situation and above all extremely pissed off they couldn't have been stranded somewhere warm for a change.

"We are going to collect evidence until Ducky gets here." Gibbs says with supreme calm in one clipped sentence.

"Oh, er boss," Tony hedges.

Kate recognises that tone. "You _did_ call him?"

Tony refuses to look her in the eye and for the first time this week he fails to hide some of the vulnerability she's worked out he's been hiding since the White case. There was a pattern forming of this behaviour in Tony, and she was ashamed it had taken her this long to see it. Gibbs obviously knew and expected this, that's why he's been going easy on him this week, letting him get away with stuff he would never normally tolerate despite the fact Tony's continued to push him into a reaction. He deserves a medal for his restraint. She obviously hasn't held back quite as well, rising to the bait each and every time, and giving Tony exactly what he's being wanting – punishment. Her eyes soften, but looking at Gibbs now upon hearing the news that they may well be stranded out here it appears the negative attention Tony's been craving for believing he screwed up the White case was about to be delivered, tenfold.

"DiNozzo!" He snaps, stepping right up to Tony until they're nose to nose.

"Ha, you see funny thing there boss," Gibbs glares at him and he hurries it up, gaze pinned to the floor like a little boy being chastised by his father. "I sent him a text because my battery was dying because of the cold, I'm pretty sure he got it though."

His eyes are tightly shut anticipating the headslap and if it wasn't for those last few hastily spoken words she may have felt sorry for him.

"Pretty sure?" She's freezing and he's _pretty sure!_

"90%" He pauses, thinking face on, "maybe 80%,"

"Don't make me headslap you DiNozzo," Gibbs growls stepping impossible closer.

Tony immediately takes a couple of retreating steps backwards, away from the pair of them, "Ah okay, I tell you what give me your cell and I'll hike back out to the road and call him now."

Gibbs throws his cell at Tony's head. "Take McGee with you!"

"Yes boss," Tony catches the phone on reflex and runs, pushing McGee in front of him.

"And hurry up!" He yells at their retreating backs.

"Yes boss!"

Kate laughs at the high-pitched desperate to please response and picks up his camera from where he dumped it on their bags before making a run for it, Gibbs picking up where McGee left off.

"That's not exactly fair you know," she grins down the camera's lens. "McGee didn't do anything,"

"DiNozzo won't beat himself up with McGee around." Gibbs says honestly, sounding beaten.

"Wow Gibbs, you really are nice at Christmas," Kate laughs, stopping as soon as she catches his glare, "Not that you're not always nice."

"You think me ignoring him is me being nice?" he looks at her likes she's crazy.

"You do know that's why he's been doing all this stupid stuff recently, don't you? To get your attention?" She points out, ignoring the fact she may well be crazy and DiNozzo's the one driving her there.

"Recently?" He questions, eyebrows raised.

"Stupider than normal then," she clarifies. "He hates it when you're nice, makes him suspicious. You know it's almost as if…"

"Kate, don't." Gibbs interrupts her, tone even though she can tell he's holding back.

"Don't?"

"Don't profile him." He shakes his head looking very serious.

Not that Gibbs doesn't always look serious, but this time he looks protective as well, and now she _knows_ she can't leave this alone.

"Gibbs what's going on?" Kate drops the camera to hang around her neck, ignoring the dead body that, like them, clearly isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and stands with hands on hips demanding answers. "With half the crap Tony's pulled in the last week anyone would expect you to have thrown him off the roof by now, but you've barely raised your voice, or your hand."

"Just ask the question Kate." Gibbs sighs.

"Okay," she thought that was a question, but whatever, "What is it you're scare of exactly?"

Gibbs' barely disenable facial expressions are blink and you miss them on a good day, but after asking _that_ question he freezes, stopping mid-action of writing on an evidence bag, and doesn't move for the whole second it takes him to regain control. He then continues with what he's doing completely ignoring her.

"Gibbs I didn't want to say this-"

"Then don't" He instructs, words as cold as the snow she's still ankle boot deep in.

"I know you care about Tony, I do too, but-"

"But what?" He snaps at her, throwing the now completed evidence bag onto the pile and then stares her down.

But Kate refuses to look away. "What I'm saying is he made it home okay, Jeffrey White isn't coming back."

She's expecting him to shout at her again, or maybe just continue glaring until he finally burns a hole right through her, but when he sighs heavily and drops his head, pale blue eyes the saddest she's ever seen them, it surprises the hell out of her.

"It was too close." He admits quietly, looking vulnerable for all of a second longer before slipping his stoic mask back in place.

Kate knows she's the one who pushed him to admit he was worried when Tony was missing, but never in a million years did she ever think it would back-fire quite this badly. She needed to listen to her sister more often and leave the psychiatry to the professionals.

"Gibbs…" She stutters, unsure how to continue, never having expected him to answer her in the first place.

"This would have been his third strike." He continues, seemingly unaware of her discomfort, or just beyond caring.

Kate doesn't dare speak for fear of saying the wrong thing again and shutting him up for good, the rarity of the moment too all-consuming to know the right thing to do.

"Baseball, Agent Todd," he explains with a smile when she looks obviously stumped.

"Thomas Oliver, the waitress and Jeffrey White," Kate counts off the number of times Tony has been kidnapped since last Christmas, understanding the analogy. "Gibbs it's only natural you'd feel over protective of him since what happened. It's an understandable response, fearing for someone we love."

"Don't profile _me_ either," he grouses voice thick with emotion, breaking eye-contact and the moment, swiftly packing up their things.

She'd taken a risk with the love comment. Though that was clearly what it was, she knew neither Gibbs nor Tony were ready to admit to it. Only last week, despite acting like a worried parent even before the operation had started – a state to which Abby would be able to attest to - he'd adamantly denied caring about anything other than the case. And now he was trying to avoid facing the fact that the feelings he's experiencing now, the actions he's been taking since bringing Tony home safe have nothing to do with doing the job and everything to do with him caring about his agent more than the case.

"Did you know Tony still hasn't unpacked all his things from Baltimore?" Kate changes the subject.

She knows she's no psychiatrist, but she is a profiler and with all evidence collected and nothing else to do until Ducky arrives, Kate's prepared to use her skills to get to the bottom of this. Maybe then by the New Year things will be back to normal with a Gibbs who smiles occasionally and never lets Tony step out of line.

"_What?_" His tone is more weary than annoyed.

"He told me that monstrosity he put on McGee's desk, he found it one of the boxes he was unpacking."

"In case you hadn't noticed Kate Tony has a few issues with commitment." Gibbs says bluntly.

"Doesn't that bother you? That he's been working at NCIS over three years and still has stuff to unpack?"

Kate waits patiently, watching Gibbs pile their stuff, lifting most of it onto his shoulder looking cooler than McGee ever could with the same load. Snow has started falling again, the temperature dropping incrementally with the hour. He walks up and stands at her side, facing the opposite direction to her, towards the road.

"You know what bothers me Kate?" Gibbs says voice low and dangerous. "Men like Jeffrey White" he spits the name, "that continue to hurt people even after they get what they deserve."

And with that Gibbs walks away, leaving Kate alone in the snow with the dead body to wonder what the hell she had been thinking.

.

_**Christmas day morning…**_

Kate's finishing her report from their night spent in the park and Gibbs is making his way up from processing. Neil their "friendly" fire-fighter had been caught by local LEO's after running a stop sign out in Virginia. His cool had completely gone by that point though and was arrested for failing to stop when pulled over. He'd been in lock up when their BOLO was issued and swiftly transferred, confessed to the murder within the hour. Luckily no other cases had come in so they'd soon be free to leave and let another team take over.

"All squared away?" GIbbs asks her, looking tired.

Of course since they'd spent most of the night at the park, changing tires on the truck once Ducky showed up with extra spares and then issuing bolos etc…they were all tired, but at least some of them had managed to not give into it.

"Yep, you heading home Gibbs?" Kate asks and as expected she gets a look instead of an answer. "Should I wake them?"

She's pointing at Tony and Tim, both of whom are asleep at their desks. McGee as neat as ever is sitting bolt up-right in his chair, chin slumped to his chest, the Christmas tree having found a place on the floor next to him. Tony on the other hand is sprawled face down, chair kicked back, drooling on his keyboard.

Gibbs looks at the pair of them and then walks over to Tony. She's expecting him to yell, drop a coffee on him, head slap him even, anything other than the gentle shake to his shoulder and hand running briefly through his dirty sweaty hair.

"What's going on?" Tony's muffled voice reaches her ears as he swats at the unknown irritation.

Gibbs walks away quickly without a sound before Tony shoots upright in his seat. He eyes them both suspiciously, but Gibbs is already sitting at his desk, concentrating on a report as if he was never there.

"You okay Tony?" Kate asks.

She smiles at him when his narrowed eyes flick between the three of them, mentally tallying suspects. His rather confused gaze locks onto to hers, but she puts every last bit of energy she has into not giving away it was Gibbs who'd just gently coaxed him awake.

She has to give it to him, Gibbs likes to be unpredictable and she's realising he's as much a practical joker as Tony. Only their methods are vastly different. Tony has to have everyone know it's him who's got one over on them whereas Gibbs seems content with performing the act and getting away with it. It makes her wonder how many things Gibbs has done and they've not even realised it was him. It has her forming a completely new opinion of her boss and she wonders what more she'll have learnt about him, about all of them by _next_ Christmas.

"What?" Tony snaps grumpily at her no doubt amused look.

"You fell asleep." Kate clarifies, packing up her stuff.

Tony yawns and blinks a few times and then he notices McGee's still sleeping. Grabbing his pen Tony sends it flying over and it hits McGee, in an excellent shot, right between the eyes.

"Pack it in Tony." He drawls without opening his eyes.

Tony looks utterly surprised, but Kate and Gibbs both laugh.

"Come on." Gibbs orders, standing from his desk, "I want you all in the car in five."

"Ah boss not another case." Tony whines like a petulant schoolboy getting his stuff anyway.

"Nope. Breakfast," he smiles, walking out of the bullpen, "my treat."

Kate's eyes widen in surprise, but Tony simply brightens and asks if they're going to I-hop, which apparently is open 365 days of the year. Kate's not sure how she feels about that, Pancakes for Christmas day, but she can't exactly be choosy now can she? In the elevator Tony is bouncing again, like he has been most of last night and into today before sleep finally took him.

"I know an excellent gaming lounge."

"Of course you do Probie."

"It has girls." McGee adds with an eyebrow waggle, appealing to DiNozzo's baser side.

"Naked?"

"No,"

"Ah, well I know-" Tony started.

"Gibbs!" Kate squealed.

Gibbs smacks him upside the head.

"Pancakes are good boss."

.

A/N: AHhhh. Made it! 1 hour to go this time whoo hoo! Didn't get long to write this one so I hope not too many errors – I will come back and fix any glaring ones, but for now I need sleep;). Thanks to everyone who's staying with me and hello to all the newbies! Thanks very much for all the reviews/follows/faves it keeps me very motivated to get the next instalment out by the following week. And happy NCIS day – It's the Tony show tonight I believe, can't wait to see it!

See you all next Tuesday!

Ttfn Baileys;)


	6. 2005 part 1

A/N: Okay so I've seen this done in another fandom and I've always wanted to try it myself, and this series has given me the opportunity. So here's my try at the Richard Dreyfus and Emilio Estevez film 'Another Stakeout' NCIS style!

FYI - this is going to be posted in three parts over the week due to the unexpected length, sorry guys;)

.

_**Season 3 Christmas 2005**_

"Boss? You wanted to see us?" McGee walks into the bullpen, out of breath and feeling haggard.

DiNozzo trails in seconds later, on _his_ heels for a change, with a face so sour Abby won't need lemons to power her stereo next time there's a blackout. It's taken every ounce of persuasion left in him to convince Tony to come back to NCIS after they got Gibbs' call and despite getting him in the building and up the stairs he's still being difficult. McGee hasn't a clue what's gotten into him lately, but he's at his wits end trying to keep Tony of off Gibbs' trouble radar this week, and god help him it's only Tuesday.

"Not me," Gibbs says lightly, eyeing them both quizzically.

McGee tries to regulate his breathing, but it's already too late and he knows it. Gibbs' narrowed eyed glare proves he's noticed his own stressed-out appearance and Tony's less than pleased expression, but in true Gibbs style ignores both and, raising his index finger, beckons them to follow him.

Looking up to the mezzanine he continues in the same easy going tone, "Director… Come on."

McGee's so consumed with thoughts about Tony's odder than normal behaviour that he remains were he's standing and stares dumbly after Gibbs as he walks off, not realising what he's doing until Tony brushes by, giving him a disgruntled look as he passes and whispers, _"told you we shouldn't have answered the phone." _

Shaking his head, willing himself to get a grip McGee catches up and easily overtakes DiNozzo, who is taking the stairs one at a time and as slow as he possibly can without looking like an idiot. He makes it halfway to the Directors door where Gibbs is waiting for them before looking back to check Tony's actually still with them. Given some of his recent behaviour around the office he wouldn't put it passed him to try and making a run for it. Tony's been obviously sulking since the last case ended a few days ago. McGee knew he was upset about not getting on TV or getting to interview the models the first time, but it wasn't until tonight when he suggested ignoring Gibbs' call to return to NCIS that Tim knew things were a lot worse than they at first appeared.

Abby's noticed he hasn't been himself too. The flowers she'd brought him the other week had assured he wasn't mad with her, for which McGee was glad about because he would have to kick DiNozzo's butt if he found out Tony was holding a grudge after all Abby had done to clear him of murder. But still it seemed as though his, albeit brief, time in Fornell's holding cell had affected NCIS's resident joker a lot more than he'd originally let on. Gibbs must know something isn't right with him too, but in typically Gibbs style is completely ignoring Tony unless the situation deserves a headslap.

Now as Christmas approaches his attitude towards the work and them is declining fast, to the point Gibbs has slapped him at least four times in one day alone. This morning Abby was so beside herself with worry that McGee had suggested they all go out for dinner and catch a movie. The plan had been going very smoothly, and it wasn't until the three of them were exiting the theatre when Tony's cell started buzzing, the caller ID flashing Gibbs, that things' took a downward turn. Tony had stared at his cell phone screen for all of a minute before actually suggesting they ignore it. It was tantamount to Batman ignoring the Bat signal and Tim knew Tony would _never_ suggest ignoring the boss in his right mind. But right mind was not what he was in clearly- he disconnected the call and carried on walking down the street looking for a pizzeria.

Tony was pissed off at Gibbs for something they were sure of it now and Tim felt he was being sorely tested to try and keep things together. Once they'd finally convinced Tony that ignoring Gibbs was not a good idea and Abby had dropped them off outside she'd made McGee promise to sort it, whatever _it_ was. He guessed if that meant putting Tony on a short leash until he could figure out what was causing his rapid decline into rebellion he guessed he'd have to do it, because despite how annoying he was, Abby was really worried and above all McGee didn't want to be the one having to tell Gibbs that Tony wasn't listening to him anymore.

"So what does she want?" Tony's clipped, bored and annoyed tone overruns McGee's thoughts, breaking the oppressive silence he hadn't realised was even there.

Gibbs had probably been glaring at him the entire time too and he hadn't noticed. Great. He's spending all his energy trying to make Abby happy by helping Tony stay out of trouble he was dropping himself right into trouble. He might as well go to the zoo and feed himself to the lions. That would be much less painful.

"I don't know yet DiNozzo, why don't you ask her." Gibbs growls so angrily Tim's tempted to duck.

Tony's pushing of the boss's temper is still escalating despite his best effects tonight and if he can't prevent the explosion he should now be thinking about taking cover out of the hot zone. He liked DiNozzo, but he certainly wasn't going to wait around to be cut to shreds in the in evitable fallout.

"Problem Agent DiNozzo?"

Tony visible jumps at the Directors sudden appearance behind them and the sight gives McGee something to smile about at least. Thankfully Tony immediately swallows his annoyance in her presence, confirming once and for all that whatever _this_ was, Gibbs was his main focus. Though god knows why Tony would chose the scariest man in the office as his proxy for taking his irritation out on. He'd actually been really pleasant before and during the movie. It hadn't been until they'd entered the squad room that his attitude had begun its real decline. Abby wasn't going to be happy when he told her. She loved Tony, like a brother of course, but she also loved Gibbs. McGee couldn't be sure whose side she'd take in this considering the boss had done nothing more than be his usual non-responsive, non-talkative self.

"No, Madame Director," Tony winces with a cheesy smile.

It did him no favours since Gibbs was obviously in as good a mood with DiNozzo as DiNozzo was with him. The boss immediately grabs him by the jacket and pulls Tony into the director's office, dragging him backwards without care, ordering him to sit in front of her desk like a naughty child facing the high school principle. Tim would have laughed if he didn't think that would earn him the same treatment.

"We have a situation." The Director starts, completely ignoring the childish byplay that Tim can't imagine happening in any other federal office except this one, and produces several copies of the same file, passing them around.

"I'll have one," a voice sneaks up on him, making Tim jump much like the Director did Tony.

"Ziva?" he squeaks unintentionally.

Ziva, who had clearly been waiting in the Director's office for them smiles at him like she knows what's she's done and is enjoying his reaction immensely. Neither the Boss or Tony are paying them any attention though, Gibbs is glaring down at Tony and Tony is steadfastly staring at the desk top in front of him, a forced look of indifference on his face. He admittedly wasn't an expert on all the workings of Tony and Gibbs' relationship prior to his induction on the team, but after 18 months even he knew the best way to get Tony to do what you wanted was to avoid full on confrontation with him. Right now it looked as if Gibbs was purposefully bating him to react and that spelt nothing good for any of them.

"A key witness for a high profile case has gone missing." The Director draws back their collective attention, no way she can't sense the tension in the room, but then she's worked with Gibbs before and probably knows how DiNozzo feels. "The FBI are asking for our assistance."

"Why?" Gibbs frowns, his vexed tone making it clear, in case anyone is in any doubt, that he doesn't like the FBI.

"Why indeed." Fornell says walking in at that very moment, likely hiding behind the closed door waiting for the perfect time to make his entrance.

McGee's not sure how much of this craziness he can take. He has a Senior Field agent whose emotional age rarely makes it into double figures, a boss who does what he wants when he wants and rarely explains, a Mossad liaison who can kill with a paperclip and purposefully bates the aforementioned childish Senior Field Agent and a Director who seems to get a kick out of the whole charade. Adding in the likes of Fornell who likes to get one up on them and stir things up whenever possible and there you have a recipe for a breakdown. Norfolk, though boring, was a least good for his mental health.

"Sorry I'm late I was getting travel arrangements ready." Fornell grins and McGee's gut does a somersault.

"What travel arrangements?" Gibbs barks before anyone else can get in there.

It's Tuesday 21st December. Christmas is on a weekend this year and McGee had been keeping all his fingers and toes crossed for an uneventful week. Right now he feels that all slipping away from him…

"Gibbs you know how much this pains me…" Fornell says, still with the smile, meaning it so definitely doesn't.

"You lost a witness and you want us to clean up your mess? Doesn't surprise me Tobias." Gibbs turns the tables on him, reining in his annoyance to throw an insult at Fornell.

Tony's grinning. A mutual enemy is at least good for something.

"We lost two agents," Fornell sobers, and so does the room. "The witness was due to testify in a Mafia trial, murder one, but without her testimony the judge is going to throw the case out."

"What happened?" McGee asks looking at the pictures of the destroyed house contained within the folder the Director had handed out.

"What do you think happened?" Fornell snaps. "They blew up the place!"

"You sure the witness survived?" Gibbs steps in, all games of one-upmanship forgotten.

"It's been confirmed." Fornell nods.

Everyone looks around at each other, silently agreeing that now is not the time to complain about possibly working the holiday.

"What do you want us to do? What's our jurisdiction?" Tony asks, his bad mood also temporally shelved.

"The witness has friends, one who is a married Navy Commander home on leave. We believe she may try contacting them, hiding out with them until the case gets turfed. There are other places she could go, but we've managed to cover all avenues except this one."

"Commander Miller has classified clearance and SecNav wants NCIS involved in the stakeout." The Director informs them of the details Fornell is leaving out.

"Stakeout? Cool." Tony bounces.

Upon hearing the word he becomes reanimated and McGee internally sighs. DiNozzo on a stakeout. Over Christmas? Oh god.

"Where?" Gibbs asks tiredly and shakes his head, his thoughts no doubt mirroring McGee's own.

"That's what we have had a little trouble with."

Fornell and the Director share a look and McGee's stomach drops clear out of sight.

"The Commander and his wife have already travelled to their lake home in the Hamptons to spend Christmas."

There's a short sharp gasp from where Tony's sitting, but looking over McGee sees nothing out of the ordinary. Gibbs is staring at the Director like he wants her dead and Ziva is still smiling like she already knew all about this.

"So?" McGee asks not getting why this is a problem.

"So Probie," DiNozzo plasters on a fake smile, seemingly having gotten himself together, "the chance of surveillance without being noticed is near impossible. Any new car, anybody out of place, hell any movement of any kind is going to be noticed by someone and once one person knows…"

"They'll all know." Fornell grimaces.

The Director coughs and they share another look.

"What?" Gibbs growls, noticing it too.

"Agent Fornell has come up with a rather interesting alternative to the conventional stakeout." The Director teases, taking a seat at her desk for the first time since the entered.

Gibbs steps around to face Fornell head on, glare fixed on his target like a missile ready for launch.

"You go in in plain sight. A judge owns the house next door, it's across the lake, but has a clear view of the Commander's house. I've pulled in some favours and he's agreed to let us use it for this operation."

"Neat, Christmas in wonderland. When do I pack?" Tony jumps up, already excited at the prospect of the four of them spending the holidays together.

It didn't make sense, a minute ago the idea of being in the same room as Gibbs had him wanting to bolt. Why all of a sudden did being trapped out by the lake sound like the best idea ever? And better yet, how the hell was he going to keep DiNozzo from annoying Gibbs and stop Gibbs from killing DiNozzo if they were to be sharing the same space twenty four seven. There wasn't going to be a back up team by the sounds of it, certainly no going home to rest up. This was a nightmare…

"Not so fast DiNutso," Fornell has a shit eating grin on his face, Tim doesn't think it's possible this can get any worse, but has the distinct feeling that's exactly what's about to happen. "You need to know your cover story to tell people, you know should accidently bump into anyone."

"Which we will, spent enough time up there as a kid to know you can't spit without the neighbours knowing about it." Tony says quickly moving on, "So what's the story?"

"Well like DiNutso says, you are going to be noticed," Fornell addresses everyone, "and the Commander and his wife will know the judge is still in DC because of his televised commitments, so you are going together, staying as friends of the judge who has lent you his home for the Christmas season-"

Tony laughs, "Staying as what, friends or lovers?"

McGee groans at the humour. Gibbs glares, though his lips do twitch, it must be because this is the first time he's seen Tony really smile in a while. Ziva has yet to react to anything being said.

Fornell's grin widens. "Actually we thought you'd pass as father and sons."

Silence, stone cold dead silence, then –

"Daddy?" DiNozzo jokes to Gibbs, arms open wide and gets a smack in the head for his trouble.

McGee guesses he's luckily it was just his head.

"You said 'sons' what will my role be?" Ziva eventually speaks, her facial expression changing for the first time, clearly she didn't know this bit of the plan.

"Well we thought it might be pushing it to suggest you have three grown up children," Fornell smirks at Gibbs.

"I would hardly classify Tony as a 'grownup'" Ziva mutters darkly.

The Director looks uncomfortable McGee notices, and when he follows her gaze to the boss he can see why. Gibbs does not look happy.

"Ziva will be your wife, second marriage," she announces politely.

McGee did not see that coming, and neither did Tony if the dropped jaw look is anything to go by.

Nothing much more is said. Fornell hands them their orders, complete with cover identities. It turns out he and DiNozzo are only half-brothers. Tony was a product of a one night stand many years ago that came back to bite Gibbs, or rather Gibbs' alter ego, Jethro Briggs, in the ass.

"They're very detailed," is all McGee can think to say.

Tony makes yet another inappropriate joke, this time about the tradition of his real father's tendency to date woman younger than his son, and gets yet another smack for it. Gibbs makes a comment about how he should be grateful he was still sitting down. They then all leave to go home and pack.

'

A/N: next part up tomorrow hopefully, but if not definitely Thursday! Thanks very much for all your reviews and encouragement!


	7. 2005 part 2

A/N: Hmmm a few hours late, Sorry! I forgot yesterday was Halloween, ended up trolling the streets for chocolate with what felt like a million kids in tow instead of editing this. Hopefully not too many mistakes contained within. Thanks for all the encouragement. And for those of you "concerned" about Ziva playing the wife – have faith ;) lol, enjoy!

_**Christmas 2005 continued…**_

It's Wednesday the 22nd December 2005. Their plane landed in a snowy Newark on time, they collected their luggage with ease and hired a car without issue. It all seemed to be going smoothly. Then at 2.38pm they hit the road for the Hamptons and so began the longest journey of McGee's life.

No one has said more than two words to each other since leaving Washington. That was partly because Tony's resolutely not talking unless it's to make a sarcastic comment, but mainly down to the very delicate nature of the FBI's case. _Someone_ leaked the information of the missing witness's safe house, so they have to assume that same someone is going to be looking out for any suspicious activity surrounding the case, like say four NCIS agents travelling to Long Island where it just so happens two of the witness's close friends are staying. So from the minute they entered Dulles airport to check-in for their commercial flight they were known as the 'Briggs', a dysfunctional family consisting of two adult unattached brothers, their sometimes estranged father and the new step mom they don't fully approve of. According to the backstory supplied by Fornell the purpose of their Christmas vacation in the Hamptons is to reconnect, which was kind of funny considering they probably spend over 80% of their time in each other's company.

Reconnecting maybe exactly what Tony needs though, the light hearted attitude he discovered and then left the director's office with had disappeared by the time McGee arrived at his apartment this morning to take him to the airport. Fed up with being the bridge between DiNozzo's bad mood and Gibbs he questioned him point blank when he got in the car, but got nothing but an insult disguised as a joke in return, so is still none the wiser to the cause.

Now he and DiNozzo are sharing the back seat of the world's most uncomfortable Volvo, with Tony continuing to channel his inner child, pulling off the role of irascible older brother with ease. Tim has no clue where he found the ancient over-ear headphones that are filling the car with a generic tinny beat, but if the idea is to piss off everyone else, his plan is definitely working. Gibbs is driving like a sane person for a change, maintaining his cover as a family man and retired Marine, which really isn't much of a stretch considering, but is certainly making the journey last twice as long as it needs too. And Ziva? She's up front and the only one of them smiling, unexpectedly embracing the role of dutiful housewife with ease. He can't picture it himself, but then being Mossad he's pretty sure she's had worse undercover roles. Heck playing Tony's wife only a few months ago has to have been worse than this. At least she won't have to share a bed with Gibbs tonight. McGee blanches at the thought. Then his second thought troubles him even more. He hopes the house has more than two bedrooms, because he doesn't want to be sharing bunk beds with Tony. Not after the last time.

"We should probably go over our cover stories." Tim suggests nervously, just as something to say to keep his mind off bedroom logistics.

Everyone in the car agrees - everyone except Tony, who completely ignores him and continues to stare out the window. Gibbs yells his name to get his attention, but Tony ignores him too, the headphones obviously doing a better job of keeping noise out than in. Then in a move no one could have predicted Gibbs, one hand still on the steering wheel, reaches behind him into the backseat and snatches the headphones right off his head.

Tony makes an undignified startled yelp, having clearly been deep in thought about something, so much so that he didn't see Gibbs' hand coming. McGee couldn't speak. He hadn't meant to cause trouble and wishes he'd simply kept his mouth shut instead of trying to getting everyone talking.

"_Dad_?" Tony queries after a prolonged pause, head cocked to the side like what just happened was nothing.

Gibbs glares at the pair of them via the rear view mirror. McGee shrinks back in his seat, but Tony barely twitches, taking his life in his hands by daring to glare back. The air inside the car seems to drop a few degrees, matching the freezing temperatures outside, but unlike the past few days where he's been able to steer Tony away from pushing the boss's button too hard this time there was nowhere to escape.

They continue their drive in silence, the car bumping its way down the interstate. Gibbs doesn't let up on his stare and the fear now evident on McGee's face has nothing to do with the boss's anger and everything to do with the fact they are driving down the packed expressway picking up speed.

"Sorry Boss," Tony comes around all of a sudden, looking honestly apologetic, but then so would anyone under that stare after so long.

"I think you mean, Daddy, no?" Ziva chastises jokingly, not even giving the atmosphere surrounding them in the stuffy Volvo time to warm up.

Tony's gaze snaps to her, expression switching from regretful to cunning in an instant, "Whatever you say, _Mom_."

"I did not give you permission to call me that." She snaps back heatedly, spinning around in her seat, able to give it but not take it obviously.

She collects herself quickly though on seeing Tony's smirk of triumph and changes tactics. "That's okay Tony. It is common for spoiled children to dislike change, especially when they don't get the attention they want."

She punctuates her jibe with a wink in Tony's direction before sliding back into her seat facing forward. Tim wishes he could be _anywhere_ but here right now, but since jumping out of a moving car isn't a sensible option he settles for closing his eyes and waiting for the inevitable.

"Well _Zi-Va_, I've had more stepmothers than Christmases" he can hear Tony smiling as he speaks, "and you know what they all have in common?"

"What?" Ziva laughs, humouring him - worst mistake.

Tim shakes his head in dismay, instinctively opening his eyes when he feels movement next to him and sees Tony leaning forward over Ziva's shoulder.

"They never last." He whispers sinisterly, though loud enough for everyone in the car to still hear.

Ziva narrows her gaze to match Tony's and McGee prepares to duck and cover.

"Enough!" Gibbs' sudden bark shakes the car, making them all sit up straighter. "We have a job to do and whether this is Fornell's idea of a joke or not we get up there and we behaviour ourselves accordingly, have you got that, _Anthony?_"

Tony's face clouds over when Gibbs calls him out by name in the reprimand and not Ziva, but they all answer him with a sullen 'yes boss' anyway, even McGee, who consciously knows he's done nothing wrong, but if his experience growing up with a sister has taught him anything it's to _always_ be sorry when dad is angry.

"McGee?"

"Boss?" Tim asks wide-eyed, wondering why he is being singled out now.

Gibbs audibly sighs and McGee temporarily panics before quickly clueing into what the boss wants him to do, "I er, cover stories, yes, well…"

.

The music blaring in his ears, via the retro headphones is by no means his favourite but Tony needed something loud and annoying to ensure it blocked out all conversation and more importantly, stopped the others in the car from trying to talk to _him_.

Looking out the window, watching the snow covered city wiz by from the interstate Tony's stomach flips at the thought of how close he is to his Dad right now. As soon as the Hamptons were mentioned, try as he might he couldn't stop the old memories from churning up inside his head. The very last time he'd been was when he was eight and his dad took him fishing on the lake. It had been a good trip, one of the last Tony remembered with his parents, since it was only a few shorts weeks later that he'd stood in a rainy New York cemetery burying his mother.

After that everything changed. Step mothers came and went, as did houses. They never really had a home, just places they stayed between his father's many marriages. So no, going to the Hamptons was not going to be the happy holiday he tried to make out it would be back in the Director's office. He thought he'd covered his distress well, but then McGee picked him up this morning to go to the airport and demanded to know what was going on with him. Getting accused of shooting that cop the other week must have toughened him up some because Tony would never have believed the Probie had it in him before. Of course just because McGee had worked up the nerve to call him on his, admittedly odd, behaviour of late, he wasn't Gibbs and in no way did Tony feel obliged to answer him, even if he _could _answer, which he couldn't because he really didn't know what was going on with him. So he'd done what he always did when he was scared, confused and feeling unhinged. He made a joke.

Just admitting he didn't know what was wrong, even inside his own mind, had Tony shrinking into his seat, wanting to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. This is his first trip back to New York, willingly at least, in three years and he wants to headslap himself for letting his past get to him so easily. On top of everything that was bugging him before they even knew about this trip he's already suffering serious travel sickness from simply being in the car, he doesn't need the nervous tension, origin unknown, steadily building in his stomach pushing him into full blown nausea as well.

Sinking lower into the back seat so he doesn't have to see the icy water as they cross the George Washington Bridge, Tony forces his mind back on the case. Spending the next few days with Gibbs and the team in an enclosed space is not going to be conductive to his current mood, but he knows he needs to pull it together, lives at stake and all that. He really wants to kill Fornell, and anyone else who had a hand in creating his cover ID of one Anthony Briggs, 27 year old unemployed high-school dropout with an attitude problem. Whose respected Marine father and his connections are the only things keeping him out of jail. The parallels to recent events are uncanny and he bets Sacks had something to do with it, wouldn't put it passed him to try and use it to get him in jail for real this time too. The idea pisses him off even more, though it occurs to him what his current attitude, even if he doesn't fully understand the reason, will lend to his performance as the wayward son. At least he can tell Gibbs when he pulls him up on it, which he knows he will eventually, that he's just playing his role. No big.

Tony chuckles internally at the idea of Gibbs actually believing that. He thinks about the odds of it happening, trying to distract his mind, but unfortunately keeps circling back to the main question at hand. What the hell is wrong with him? He hasn't a clue. Avoiding the issue isn't going to help, this much he does know. Tony also knows he can't continue to give Gibbs a hard time either. It's just that sometimes when he feels lost, angry or anything else that makes him uncomfortable and doesn't know why, Gibbs is the _only_ person he knows who he can give a hard time to who won't walk away.

He thinks he knows what McGee and Abby were up to last night by taking him out. Abby's probably still worried he's mad at her for the whole sending him to jail thing, even though he's already told her he isn't. McGee just really wants to make Abby happy he thinks, but there's a hint of caring in there too. For all the stick he gives McGee Tony knows he can count on him, but it isn't the same as it is with Gibbs. And again he really doesn't know why. Story of his life.

Maybe he should talk to someone. Not Abby, because as lovely as she is she gets stressed when things are out of whack and Tony considers himself very out of whack at the moment. McGee is still the Probie, so that's a no go, he can't have him knowing how screwed up he really is. Ziva? Move on… Ducky would be good, but then Tony knows, though meaning well, he'll tell Gibbs everything eventually anyway, so he might as well tell Gibbs… which could work if only Gibbs was nice.

Tony wants to laugh at his own unintentional joke. It was only six months ago he was telling McGee how he _hated_ it when Gibbs was nice, but he reason's there's a difference between Gibbs being nice and Gibbs being nice _to him. _At least there is in his mind. A Gibbs who's nice to everyone is the scary _not Gibbs_, he actually has no problem if Gibbs is nice to _him_ occasionally - when he deserves it of course.

The good feeling leaves him all of a sudden. He hasn't been nice to him recently, four headslaps in one day proves that, and the whole having his six during the 'frame up' episode doesn't count either – extenuating circumstances. So maybe he hasn't deserved nice Gibbs? Maybe that's why he got framed for murder in the first place, maybe that's why he feels so off kilter now, why he-

"Tony!" The scream of his name happens simultaneously with the tearing off the headphones.

Tony screams too, but only because Gibbs takes a bit of hair with them. It's funny, the boss had held his cool throughout airport check-in, managing not to slap him each and every time he made a crack about him, Ziva, or him _and_ Ziva, but apparently that stock of calm has been all used up, and considering they're only halfway across the Bronx expressway that doesn't bode well for the rest of the trip.

"_Dad?_" He replies lightly after a moment's thought.

The growl he hears in response shuts him up. By the icy feel of the atmosphere in the car it seems they may have been trying to gain his attention for some time. McGee looks terrified, Ziva's smirking and Gibbs is glaring at him. Tony gives him a narrow eyed glare back, all his introspection and acknowledgement that he's acting out going out the window.

They stare at each other for what feels like hours, but eventually Tony sighs, giving in, seeing he's got no other course of action left other than to apologise.

.

"Sorry Boss," Tony says, looks it too.

Gibbs eases his foot off the accelerator and is about to offer a wink to show he's forgiven when Ziva speaks up beside him.

"I think you mean, Daddy, no?"

Gibbs sighs and mentally headslaps her. As far as he knows Tony's not had any contact with his real dad since that email his second Christmas at NCIS and to be honest, Gibbs thinks he's better off that way, but that doesn't mean Tony thinks he is. Using the title to tease him now, no matter how unintentional, is one of the worse things she could do.

As predicted Tony doesn't take the barb lying down. They argue and not the teasing kind that Tony seems to instigate with anyone new brought into the fold either. Whether it's because he's an only child and even now, four years in, still feels the need to fight others for his attention Gibbs can't say, but when the subject of stepmothers comes up he knows he has to put an end to this.

"They never last." Tony fake whispers next to Ziva's ear, making damn sure he hears too_._

The double meaning of those words cut deep.

"Enough!" He shouts, too angry to be proud of the way all three sit to attention. "We have a job to do and whether this is Fornell's idea of a joke or not we get up there and we behaviour ourselves accordingly, you got that, _Anthony_?"

He gets Tony's been upset recently, he gets being here at this time is difficult for him personally, but that's no excuse. 

"McGee?" He continues with a heavy sigh, hoping he can get them back onto something less personal and less likely to make him want to drive the car into oncoming traffic.

Thankfully after a brief moments panic McGee gets the message and starts taking about the case. His professional discussion of their cover identities manages to keep the peace for most of the journey across Long Island in fact, which impresses him immensely. Tony and Ziva barely say more than a couple of words to each other, but Gibbs is okay with that. With Tony's current attitude hanging over them and Ziva's chronic lack tact it would be best if they stayed away from each other to be honest, but given they were all to be sharing the same space for the next few days until the FBI found their witness, not talking would have to do. Right now he's more concerned about the little narrow road he's driving down that should lead them to the Judges Lakeside home.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Tony reads his mind.

Gibbs had refused to hand the headphones back over after snatching them off his head in annoyance earlier, and so once they'd practiced their cover stories efficiently enough should anyone question them Tony had sunk back into silence, this being the first thing he'd said since.

"It's the right way," he answers because he feels Tony needs to hear something from him.

He knew the bickering with his teammates was Tony's usually method of distracting himself. He also knew that being mere miles from his childhood home and the cemetery where his mom's buried is going to be weighing on his mind. What Gibbs doesn't know, what he feels he really needs to, is why Tony's behaviour changed so suddenly a week ago and what the hell to do about it.

"There appears to be only this one road in or out of the immediate area," McGee says without looking up from his palm computer thingy.

"It does not bode well should we have to pursue anyone."

"We won't be pursuing anyone, FBI have sent us on a wild goose chase." Tony yawns and stretches his legs across McGee's lap.

The tree-lined road they're following then opens up on one side to afford them an excellent view of every home surrounding the icy lake.

"Agent Fornell was right, there is little chance of anyone arriving here without being seen," Ziva says, staring in awe out the window at the vista of snow before them.

Looking in the mirror again he can see McGee is equally as impressed with the scenery as Ziva, but Tony… he looks haunted. Expression blank, shut down. It takes only seconds for him to realise he's being watched to school his features, but it's still too late. Gibbs can see from that look alone there's more going on here than some bad childhood memories, and decides he can only go on so long pretending not to notice. He catches Tony's gaze in the mirror and nodding silently, he makes a promise; they will sort this, whatever _this_ is.

Tony doesn't look too pleased, but frankly he doesn't care. This is about what's best for Tony, not what he prefers. Despite popular opinion he really doesn't _enjoy_ being a bastard. It's just who he is some of the time. DiNozzo's problem is he can't understand it when anyone's nice to him. It makes him suspicious. In his mind nice equals manipulation, understandably so considering his father's a master manipulator at the best of times. Hell Gibbs only has to smile at him and Tony's world goes into a tailspin.

"This is it." McGee announces as they pull up outside a split level house, the lake right behind it connecting to the others via Jetty's.

Gibbs pulls the car into the double driveway and they get out, stretching their legs after the long journey, taking a good look around. Doing recon without looking like that's what you are doing is harder than it looks. If they were sneaking into the house undetected that would actually be easier, but it was important they act like tourists and hiding from view of anyone watching would only raise suspicion.

Ziva takes the outside perimeter of the house, pretending to be admiring the view. She's wearing a long shirt and high heels instead of her usual combat trousers and boots, looking like your typical high maintenance housewife instead of trained assassin. Gibbs dreads to think where she's hiding all her knifes. Gazing through the roof to floor windows he can see McGee is inside looking rather bored as he goes from room to room, he enters the house and comes up behind him in the kitchen, but before he can question what it is he's doing Gibbs see's the tiny black box in his hand.

"No bugs, boss," he announces at the same time Ziva walks in.

"No foot prints or other evidence of anyone being outside within the last week, though with the snow fall I can't be 100% without drawing suspicion." She reports.

"No that's okay… Fornell did say this was a long shot." Gibbs assures tiredly, the drive and worrying about DiNozzo having taken it out of him.

"A lot of effort for a long shot," Tony grumbles, making an appearance from somewhere upstairs.

Gibbs sends him a look questioning him on exactly what he's been doing while they were scoping out the area.

"The Commander's house is across the Lake to the left, upstairs front bedroom has the best view. We should set up the cameras there." He answers without inflection, bad attitude here to stay it seems. "It's a nice pad at least," Tony continues, not noticing his chagrin because he's rooting for the TV remote on the bookcase…"Ooh full Cable package!"

Gibbs stares heavenward, praying for strength.

"We're not here to watch the Christmas special, Tony." Ziva snaps at him as she and McGee leave to bring everything in from the car.

Gibbs gives him several pointed looks to indicate he should be helping, but every one of them goes over his head. Sadly when it comes to the job there are only two main ways to keep Tony on target; yelling at him and smacking him. Of course well-adjusted grownups didn't need help to stay focused, but Tony wasn't by any stretch a well-adjusted grownup. Looking at him now, dawdling his way into the living room, scuffing snow covered shoes across the hardwood floors only to fall onto the couch in front of the TV without removing his coat, even calling him a grownup was pushing it. If only Kate were here to see him now, she'd kill him.

"Ow!" Tony protests when Gibbs smacks him in the head.

"Last warning… next time it'll be your ass." Gibbs says with a smile, enjoying the look of 'is he or isn't he joking' on Tony's face.

"What did I do?" He protests.

"I think it's more about what you didn't do." McGee hums.

Gibbs sees Tony looking at McGee pretending to be completely clueless that they want his help with setting up the equipment.

"Huh?"

"Where are the camera batteries?" Ziva storms in and throws an empty bag at McGee's feet interrupting.

"I don't know, didn't you pack them?" McGee snaps back, his irritation with Tony transferring onto her.

"No you packed them." She shoots back.

"Well I didn't pack them." McGee panics. "Tony?"

"What?" Tony turns back to the TV.

"Camera batteries." Ziva snaps wearily.

"Camera batteries?" Tony repeats, again pretending to be clueless.

"Did you pack them?" She shouts, and Gibbs thinks it'll only be seconds before he finds out the answer to his question about her knifes.

"Did I pack them?"

The nonsense argument ensues, with Tony acting oblivious to the danger he's in. Now Gibbs really is at a loss as what to do. He thought the ass smacking threat would spur Tony into action and though it certainly gained his attention, it's done little to motivate him. Ignoring him these last few days hasn't worked, being a hard ass isn't working, even treating him like the brat he's being and threatening him with the 'you act like a kid, you'll get treated like one' looks set to fail.

Gibbs sighs. This is an uncommon problem for him, not knowing what to do. It makes him angry when things are out of his control and being worried is making the feeling even worse. Out the corner of his eye he sees Ziva leap forward towards the sofa where Tony is still lounging and quickly jumps in-between them. He's about to tell her to go cool off, but movement out the large windows making up most of the living room's back wall has him holding up his hand for silence. Pointing at the house across the way to the left and the jetty which connects the two they can see an older couple walking towards the house.

"Tony," Gibbs says carefully, giving him a targeted look "help your brother."

He's indicating the equipment they need to hide and disguise quickly. Luckily McGee gets the message immediately and springs into action. Tony's a little slower to respond, giving him the evil eye as he pulls himself off the sofa, but he picks up a couple of bags and drags them upstairs. Ziva's still seething, trying her hardest to hold in her rage and he points at the couple nearing the house. She rolls her eyes and nods, spinning around on the spot with a frown on her face until there's a knock on the door and she opens it, greeting the Commander and his wife with the biggest plastic smile Gibbs' has ever seen.

His listens to the opening of a polite 'welcome to the neighbourhood' kind of conversation before taking a deep breath and joining her side. It's show time.

.

TBC on Saturday! Ttfn

Love your reviews, faves, follows very, very much, thank you! x


	8. 2005 part 3

A/N: Big apologies for lateness. I've only read through once so any mistakes will be fixed later, but just so you know this thing now has a part 4;) (its EPIC!) which may be up shortly, or if I fall asleep at the table - tomorrow lol. Thanks for all the reads, reviews, follows and faves!

.

Gibbs is straining to keep up the act. The Commander looks bored and cold, like he's done what he promised his wife and wants to go, but Mrs Miller won't stop talking, in fact he fears she's the type to never stop. Suddenly there's a noise from upstairs, a girly scream which sounds suspiciously like McGee then –

"TONY!"

And a thud. Gibbs holds his fake smile better than Ziva does while Mrs Miller looks a mixture of amused and uncomfortable. Several large thuds follow the first and are easily identifiable as someone running quickly down the stairs. On cue Tony appears, looking briefly at everyone at the door before he slinks over to the couch, jumping over the back of it to fall butt first onto the seat, flicking the TV back on with a click of the remote.

"My son, Tony," Gibbs introduces him with gritted teeth.

"S'up." Tony waves lazily with one hand, eyes fixed to the TV screen showing no interest as he continues flicking through the TV channels, feet up on the coffee table.

"Well if you need anything just shout." Mrs Miller says after a lengthy pause wher Gibbs only just resists shaking his head in dismay.

"Okay," Ziva smiles, so tight it looks like her face has frozen that way in the cold "We will."

She practically slams the door shut behind them, letting out a frustrated yell. They both glare at Tony whose grinning like the Cheshire cat at his own performance.

"You have smile lines," He deadpans, watching Ziva from the couch.

"Tony I swear I'll-" She rears on him, then stops and shudders, closing her eyes to calm herself down.

Tony's laughing, but only when she can't see him. Every time Ziva looks back at him he schools his features into a blank expression. Gibbs finds it rather amusing until Ziva decides to pounce on him instead.

"Gibbs! I do not see the point in this charade, why can't we just make them tell us if they've had connect with Fornell's witness?"

"Because this is America and we don't just go barging doors down of innocent people if we can help it," Tony answers in his usual snarky manner.

"Hiding a fugitive is not innocent." Ziva shoots back.

"Witness. And we don't know she's there."

"Fornell must think she is otherwise why sends us out here?" She snaps.

"To mess with us? Get us back for stealing that body from Air Force One? Who knows what stick he has up his ass this time."

Gibbs relaxes and stands aside to listen to the by-play. _This_ is more like what he's used to, their still bickering, but at least it's about the case and they're not getting ready to hang each other.

"You stole a body from Air Force One?" McGee interrupts all of a sudden, appearing none the worse for wear after whatever it is Tony did to him a minute ago to make him scream.

"And I have the butt bruises to prove it, though technically it wasn't Air Force One because the president wasn't on it at the time," Tony repeats looking begrudged, remembering as Gibbs does that was Kate's smug line to the secret service when it came to justifying handing over jurisdiction, "but me and Ducky got to sit in his chair…. How is it you've never heard this story?" He frowns.

"Why would I?" McGee shrugs.

"Well-" and Tony cut's himself off.

There's a moments dead air while they wait for him to continue, but he never does. Tony's sitting frozen on the sofa, staring unseeingly at the floor. McGee looks to him, but Gibbs has no idea what's just made the world's greatest talker fall suddenly mute.

"It's the case I hired Kate on." He eventually fills in the gapping silence himself, walking over to stand by the sofa hovering over Tony, concern evident in his tone.

"Oh. Oooh…" McGee appears enlightened at least. "She wouldn't tell me when I asked, why wouldn't she tell me that?" Now _he's_ the one frowning.

Tony visibly shakes, blinks, and just like that the light hearted joker is back. "Maybe because she'd been hooking-OW!"

This smack stung Gibbs' hand worse than the first, but that could be down to over use recently.

"Hooking?" McGee's frown deepens.

Gibbs glares at Tony, daring him to answer, but luckily he knows what's good for him and keeps it shut, redirecting his focus back on the TV and Charlie Brown's Christmas Special as if his moment of spacy-ness never happened.

"The man she was dating at the time later died of the same affliction as the murder victim they were investigating, McGee." Ziva says conversationally.

"Oh. Hey YOU know this story?" McGee turns to her in surprise.

"Mossad know everything McGee," Tony grumbles.

"Not everything Tony," She says sullenly, pushing away from the wall she's been leaning against and gathering her personal things, ones which had been left on the floor when the neighbours decided to come round and be nosey.

They share a look, and Ziva passes Tony his own bag with a smile. He looks suspicious of her motives at first, but returns it with a soft smile of his own. Gibbs would never believe it in a million years, but it looks like a temporary truce has been formed.

She was right too, Mossad didn't know everything, but they certainly knew enough. Ziva had run background checks on all of them for when she was sent as Ari's handler. He knew she knew where Tony grew up, that his mom had died when he was eight and his dad had shipped him off to every summer camp or boarding school he could so as not to take responsibility for him. For a want-to-be investigator it's taken her a bloody long time to realise this isn't the best time to be tormenting him, but at least she's trying to make it right. Gazing out the window to check they aren't expecting any more nosey neighbours Gibbs notices it's already dark out and with McGee and Ziva gathering their things Gibbs turns his attention onto someone else who's very trying.

He knocks Tony's feet from the coffee table.

"Dad?" He responds cheekily, not missing a beat.

Gibbs smiles dangerously, "It's getting late, I'll take first shift, we'll swap every three, get some rest," he directs the other two without taking his eyes off Tony who's staring looking lost at the floor again.

From snarky to silent in the flick of a switch, _what the hell is going on with you DiNozzo?_ Gibbs senses McGee watching them. He knows Tim's been working extra hard this week to keep Tony from getting his ass fired and Gibbs appreciates it. Whatever happened during the week McGee had been under the microscope for the cop killing Gibbs knows DiNozzo stepped up and helped him, McGee obviously took that on board. Catching his eye Gibbs gives him a rare reassuring nod that he'll handle this. It's enough, McGee visible relaxes and follows Ziva up the stairs.

The TV's showing adverts instead of the cartoon from earlier and he switches it off at the source, but Tony doesn't even blink. Now they're alone Gibbs takes it a step further and leans forward, tapping his cheek. Tony looks up at him sharply, expression vulnerable and unguarded. It surprises him, but he doesn't let it show, he actually debates whether to get into this now, or leave it and let him get a decent night's sleep. Whatever's going on with Tony, his mood has simmered down some from earlier. He looks more tired than angry now, worse in fact, he looks drained.

"Bed" Gibbs instructs plainly, decision made and nudges his head towards the stairs, pulling Tony up from the couch before he can protest.

Gibbs pushes him in front, hoping that by tomorrow maybe he'll have his head on straight and whatever is bugging him he can put it behind him.

.

The next morning Tony's startled awake by loud banging at the front door. He looks around blurrily, but there's no sign of anyone. Last thing he remembers is McGee taking over the surveillance and sending him to bed at around five this morning. He tried going straight to sleep, but the racing car bed in the room he and McGee are being forced to share isn't as remotely comfortable as it looks and McGee had already rumpled the princess one. So he opted instead to make his way down stairs intending on getting a drink and some breakfast. Next thing he knows he's waking up lying sprawled across the couch, TV on and a blanket covering him.

The knocking happens again, loud enough to wake the dead and draws his attention back to what disturbed his sleep in the first place. Nobody else has come to check on the racket so he sleepily pulls himself up off the couch. Checking his gun Tony stealthily approaches the side window and peeks out. Recognising the caller as their neighbour from the other day he relaxes, hides his gun and schools his face to greet the impatient witch.

"Hi," he says swinging the door open revealing his dazzling smile.

"Oh hi… Is your dad in?" she asks looking marginally disappointed.

Something tells Tony Mrs Miller is only marginally disappointed eight months of the year when her husband's at sea too.

"My dad, er no, he's out…" Tony drawls, desperately trying to cast out the mental picture of her and Gibbs from his mind. "But his wife's here." He ends brightly, "Oh MOM!"

Mrs Miller flinches, a crack forming in her solid armour of orange make-up. He doesn't get a response straight away and Tony worries they all left him during the night.

"Well not to worry I was just-"

"WHAT?!" Ziva snaps, appearing suddenly from the kitchen, giving him the look of death.

She wasn't a very good morning person the last time they stayed together either. Tony's facing her, nudging his head discreetly at the woman standing by the door, unable to prevent the evil grin from consuming his face at her outrage of being referred to as 'Mom' again.

"Hello again," Mrs Miller waves looking very uncomfortable.

Tony's making hand signals and raised eyebrows trying to convey the message of what he believes the allusive Mrs Miller is really doing here when Ziva walks up to him and without missing a beat jabs him in the stomach. He cries out in pain, bending over double coughing.

"Oh honey, are you okay," Ziva pats his back pretending to have nothing to do with his sudden incapacity. "We best get you inside where it's warm. He was so poorly recently." She turns and tells Mrs Miller with a false smile.

"Oh okay then I'll just…" she begins to reply, but Ziva shuts the door in her face before she can finish.

Tony looks up to see the smile's gone and the death look back in its place. Tony is staring at her with a mixture of fear and anxiety when Gibbs appears from around the back of the house, opening and stepping through the sliding doors.

"Where you been boss?" He asks quickly, not taking his eyes off of Ziva in case she goes for one of her hidden weapons.

"We need ears inside the house." He gets straight to the point.

"Okay and how do we do that?" Tony asks, not questioning the boss's judgement.

"Do we really think she and her husband are in contact with the witness?"

"Well something was keeping them up last night." Gibbs explains.

"Marital bliss?" Tony jokes.

"Arguing, but it wasn't about their marriage."

"I guess you would know-" a joke about Gibbs' ex-wives is on the tip of his tongue, but he manages to stop himself just in time to avoid his first head slap of the day.

"We'll have to wait for them to go out and break in," Ziva says instead.

"They are out,"

"But Mrs Miller was just here," she points at the door she'd just slammed in the woman's face.

"Looking for you, boss," Tony adds with a wink.

"And the Commander was in his car at the end of the drive, they've driven off heading to town," Gibbs ignores him, "We probably don't have long, you two get over there now,"

Tony and Ziva exchange mutual looks of discontent, but both get moving. Tony runs upstairs to grab the gear and tell McGee to keep a look out for a while longer.

.

Ziva watches him go.

"He seems better this morning," she says lightly, "did you talk last night?"

Gibbs eyes her questioningly. She knows she has a habit of sticking her nose in where it isn't wanted and she's aware that a lot of the time her words may come off as insensitive, but she is _trying_ to fit in despite how it may seem. Of course Tony's often flippant sense of humour doesn't help. What also doesn't help is the bond they seem to share, which even with Gibbs sometimes supersedes what's best in favour of what's safe. When she put the request in to join NCIS, Gibbs' team in particular she had no idea how close they all were. It's not that she thinks every life is expendable, but risk is part of the job, at Mossad a team has a purpose and any loss for the cause is acceptable. It's been four months since she took over the desk and still she feels the ghost of Kate hanging over her now and again.

Gibbs shakes his head and sighs. "It's Christmas, he usually likes this time of year."

That doesn't really answer her question so she probes a little further.

"Well it is a time for children is it not, and getting to know Tony these past few month I think he is a child 365 days of the year, I'm not surprised he loves Christmas." She chuckles and she sees Gibbs smile with her, "I'm sure his family must miss spending the time with him," she continues, watching him carefully for a reaction…"he never talks about them…"

.

Ziva is waiting to gage his reaction and Gibbs realises this isn't a casual conversation - Ziva's interrogating him, about _Tony_.

"How do you normally spend Christmas Gibbs?" She continues when he doesn't answer.

Gibbs looks at her inquisitively, he knows she knows about his own family, but he guesses it's the more personal aspects that Mossad miss out on their background checks that she's interested in.

"DiNozzo features heavily," he says without pause.

"Really?" Her eyebrows look like they're about to jump off her head.

He nods. Doesn't see what's so strange really, a couple of Christmas' they've been working so spending time together is inevitable. One of those Tony ended up in the hospital and he missed most of it high on pain killers. It's unbelievable that someone so usually highly tuned to his environment can end up with the observational skills of a toddler after one shot of morphine, but it happens and Gibbs knows what his reaction is thanks to previous experiences of DiNozzo in hospital, so that Christmas he stayed with him and kept him safe. Another Christmas, their first with Kate had been the worst. Tony had been kidnapped, missing nearly a week until the FBI of all people found him. He curses Tony out all the time for getting in these messes, but on that occasion Gibbs had been the reason he got into trouble. Tony should have been on a date, but had swung by his place at the last minute instead. Thomas Oliver, the son of a serial killer Gibbs and the FBI let slip through the net ten years prior had been waiting for him that night. He'd wanted to hurt Gibbs, but Tony had walked in instead, changing his plans. It still hurts to think about how badly that could have ended. The first Christmas he'd spent with them however was one of the best memories Gibbs had of his life post Shannon and Kelly. He hadn't celebrated in years, but Tony had been so insistent, and once he eventually thought about why, Gibbs knew he couldn't possibly deny him.

Remembering that first Christmas, and the reason he eventually gave in to Tony's pestering, has him thinking again. It doesn't take long for the pieces in his mind to fall into place, the negative behaviour, hostile attitude and lapses in judgement mixed with the occasional lost and confused look. Suddenly it all makes sense and Gibbs thinks he's finally worked out what's been bugging Tony these last few days.

.

"Tony hurry up!" Ziva calls to him inside the house.

There's a bang, the sound of someone falling over something, then nothing. Ziva sighs. She'd have been better going in herself. It's freezing outside and she really hates the cold. Her coat offering next to no protection from the elements.

"Tony! What's happening?" She growls getting impatience.

Still nothing. Really pissed off she gives up and starts down the stairs towards the front door when a she hears a car pulling up, the crunching sound it makes over the gravel unmistakeable. She runs back up the steps just time to see the Miller's parking in front of their garage. They see her and wave.

"Tony," she calls out the side of her mouth, trying to not move her lips, "Get out of there."

She doesn't wait for a reply, no time and runs over to stop the Millers from bring in their groceries.

"Hi," she calls putting on her most friendly tone.

"Hi, Ziva, are you okay did you want something?"

"Erm, yes, yes I'm fine I just thought," She looks around nervously to see if she can see Tony, "actually we, we thought, my husband -" Ziva only barely gets that word out, first Tony now Gibbs, when was she going to play McGee's wife?

"Yes dear?"

"Huh?" Ziva had gotten momentarily distracted looking for Tony again.

"You were saying something about your husband." Mrs Miller says politely.

Ziva's at a loss, she doesn't know what to say next, she's so out of her comfort zone it isn't funny.

"Come on dear let's get inside I'm starving, what's for dinner?" Mr Miller tries to get past and into the house, but Ziva steps in front of him.

"Dinner?" She repeats, not really thinking.

"Oh why that would be lovely, Frank the new neighbours are inviting us for dinner." Mrs Miller says with enthusiasm.

Ziva's not entirely sure what to say. Commander Miller looks less than pleased though and she thinks if she gave him an excuse not to come he'd take it. She's about to make his day when she catches sight of Tony escaping out the backdoor and breathes a sigh of relief.

"Shall we say Eight?" Mrs Miler asks her. "I'll bring the wine."

With that Mrs Miller walks past her into her house, the Commander following close behind.

Ziva nods to herself, "that'll be lovely." And walks away before anything else can be alluded to.

.

"What happened?" Gibbs asks when both Ziva and Tony walk through the door arguing.

"Hit a snag boss," Tony sighs.

"The Millers returned home quicker than hoped," Ziva butts in, "Tony did not get to set all the bugs."

"Tell him what else didn't go quite to plan." Tony pushes.

"I told you I will fix that," she hisses back at him, "I'll say you are ill or something."

"What's me being sick have to do with you and Gibbs having dinner with the neighbours."

Gibbs whistles, gaining their attention.

"_What?_" he snaps, not at all happy about the snippet of information he just heard.

"Ziva accidentally invited the Millers around for dinner tonight, Boss." Tony bounces on his heels looking smug.

Gibbs takes a deliberate step towards him and Tony automatically steps back, grin gone and quickly moves out of his line of sight, leaving him facing down Ziva.

"I didn't do anything she invited herself that woman-"

"Enough," Gibbs cuts her off.

"I will fix it."

He keeps his glare on her momentarily before turning around to face DiNozzo, who'd slunk off to hover by the TV yet again.

"You didn't plan all the bugs?"

"I was checking the place out first, doesn't look to be anyone there…" Gibbs intensifies his glare. "No Boss."

"So if they have dinner here, the house will be empty that is the perfect time, no?"

"That's stupid." Tony says immediately.

Ziva narrows her eyes, "Why?"

"Because," he squeaks, "this is a stakeout, we don't hold dinner parties on stakeouts."

"Do it." Gibbs interrupts, gaining surprised glances from both of them.

"Oh wait, Gibbs I cannot keep up this charade for a whole evening." Ziva flips on her own idea.

"You don't have to. Just long enough for Tony and McGee to get the job done." He continues "then we kick them out, tell them Tony's sick or something."

"Again with me being ill, why?"

"Because you're a cry baby when you get a paper cut." She snaps.

Tony brushes off the jibe well, more like his usual self would. "Yeah, but-"

"No buts." Gibbs says straight faced, turning to Ziva, "Hope you can cook David."

"Better than Tony," she huffs.

"Hey I can cook,"

"Ordering pizza doesn't count." She snaps back.

"Well the women I date aren't interested in my culinary skills," he retorts, not one of his best.

"The women you date aren't interested in much, Tony," she laughs.

Whether that's a dig at Tony's date's usual level of intelligence or at Tony himself for being renowned around the office for his one night stands doesn't matter, Gibbs can see the comment's hit its intended target.

"I'm going for some air." Tony snaps sullenly, walking away.

Gibbs watches him go.

"What is _wrong_ with him?" Ziva demands, but not unkindly.

She looks like she knows she's crossed a line, though it's nothing beyond what Tony hasn't heard or brushed off a thousand times before from others. Up until now Tony looked to be markedly better than yesterday, but the worry is suddenly back churning in his gut. He's confident Tony's got his memories under control, Gibbs trusts him to be professional and strong enough to not let his past interfere with his work. It's the other issue he fears Tony might need help with and deciding there's no time like the present grabs his and DiNozzo's coats and leaves after him.

.

"What's up Tony?" Gibbs says carefully upon finding him sat outside the house by the lake, legs swinging off the end of the jetty above a section of broken ice.

Tony shrugs, but doesn't look at him when he walks up. The air surrounding them is near freezing and a light breeze is blowing across the lake, making it feel even colder. Of course, Tony isn't wearing anything more than a long sleeved T. Luckily Gibbs is prepared for such idiocy and settling down next to him with a world weary sigh hands Tony his coat.

"Put it on." He instructs heatedly when Tony just looks at it.

They both know what could happen if he gets a cold and Gibbs isn't going to lament on the topic of double pneumonia. He'll just bench him and put him under house arrest for the rest of winter if he has too.

"I'm fine B – Dad." He says catching himself at the last minute, remembering they're outside and anyone could be watching or listening to them right now.

He winces at Gibbs, communicating in that one look how awkward he feels about their roles, but Gibbs nods with a smile, letting him know it's okay. He feels the same way. If they really were just playing roles it would be different, but hearing Tony call him dad feels too close to real life and somehow that make their current situation all the more difficult.

"You don't seem all that fine to me," He continues anyway, with the same understanding tone he opened with.

"I'm just thinking about stuff," Tony answers tiredly, sounding like he's run out of energy to keep up the difficult act, "I'll get over it."

"What's to get over?"

"Oh, lots of things. Plague," He giggles, and Gibbs can't help but smile at that, "nearly going to prison is still kind of weighing on my mind. And of course work's been a little difficult lately in general." He adds quickly, and quietly, almost as if there's more to explain that comment but he's too scared to say, as exposed as there are.

"This about your new step mother?" Gibbs jokes, testing part of his theory without breaking their cover.

Tony blanches, but rolls his eyes seeing the funny side of their coded conversation.

"Well you know it's kind of weird, getting used to someone new…" he sighs, giving up on the rouse he gets serious, "I think I miss Kate."

Gibbs gives him a look. Of course he misses Kate. Did he think he wouldn't? Looking at the fearful confusion on Tony's face he sees he's being genuine and the realisation knocks him for six. That's exactly what Tony thought.

In his conversation with Ziva earlier Gibbs remembered why Tony was so desperate to know his Christmas plans that first year. As an only child he had no other close family, his dad has been absent pretty much since high school and friends, though plentiful where scattered all other the country. Basically he was in a new city, had lost his fiancé and was alone. Gibbs had felt for him and knowing he was partly the reason Tony was in the position he was decided to offer him the company. As it turned out Tony was as good for him as he was for Tony. That night had been some of the most fun he'd had in years with just friends. So when he thought he'd worked out the source of Tony's sudden upset this week he'd believed Tony was having issues adjusting to Ziva, questioning his place in Gibbs' life with all the recent changes, but as it turns out it's really is a lot more simpler than that and Gibbs could headslap himself, it's so obvious.

Kate's probably the first woman Tony's ever let get close to enough to care about since he lost his mother. For anyone else that may seem unlikely, but not for Tony, until bringing him over to NCIS Gibbs is sure he never really shared his life with anyone. Not even his ex-fiancé, whom on meeting her he knew wasn't going to last. Tony wasn't ready, nowhere near. It was more like he was getting married because that's what people his age did. When Kate died he must have felt all of eight years old again, reliving that confusing time where he was too young to really understand what death meant. Now they are facing their first Christmas without her, unable to grieve her loss because someone else has taken her place.

Looking over at Tony Gibbs can see he understands none of this. All he knows is it hurts and he doesn't understand why. Anger rises within him, not for the first time aimed at Tony's so called father. The man lost his wife but his child lost his mom, and instead of supporting him and helping him grieve the way his own father did he wallowed in his own self-pity, leaving Tony to deal with the loss alone. The end result being the very confused young man sitting next to him, the one that doesn't seem to understand it's okay, and normal, for him to feel sad sometimes. He realises he's probably done exactly what his father did, only difference being he's realised his mistake and intends to fix it.

Gibbs takes a calming deep breath and gazes out at the peaceful water in front of them. Tony's still edgy next to him, his expression communicating sorrow and dejection. He knows what he's about to do is irregular, but this is a unique situation. Deciding it's now or never he agrees with a nod that he misses Kate too, but doesn't say anything, instead Gibbs wraps one arm around his back and lets Tony rest his head on his shoulder.

It doesn't feel weird or uncomfortable to have Tony's weight pressing fully on his side, and if anyone is watching what does it matter? They are just playing their roles… he's a father and he's comforting his son.

.

TBC…


	9. 2005 part 4

_**Christmas 2005 continued…**_

Fitting together like two long lost puzzle pieces Tony tips his head to one side, resting on Gibbs' shoulder and in turn Gibbs wraps an arm around Tony's back. Before McGee's mind can register what's happening it goes a step further, they seem to exchange a few words then Gibbs presses his lips briefly to Tony's forehead, planting a delicate kiss.

McGee can't move. If he does the shock may kill him. They're sitting on the jetty together, looking out over the icy lake and it's as if this has happened a million times before, which McGee knows can't be true, but as if just to screw with him Tony doesn't even react to the kiss he has to have felt Gibbs leave there, not even a twitch. Now Gibbs' is circling his arms around him, pulling Tony in closer and still nothing.

Tim can't think or breathe. This is something completely foreign to what he knows of both his boss and his team-mate, come unintentional friend and its freaking him out. He steps back, keeping out of sight by hiding behind the house's boat shed, peeking out occasionally like a peeping tom. He hopes Ziva is seeing this too, she'd taken over from him watching the Miller's house and must have a pretty good view of the lake. He just wants there to be another witness so he knows he isn't going insane.

Standing in the snow, the cold damp air seeping through his clothes while he waits for Gibbs and Tony to move on Tim thinks of all that has changed this year. They had started as a complete team, Kate, Tony, him and Gibbs, but then they nearly lost DiNozzo to the plague in May, which caused a shift in the team's dynamics for a while and then a couple of weeks later they really did lose Kate, to Ari, who it turns out was Ziva's half-brother. Gaining Ziva was nice, but the abrupt change and loss of Kate was and still is being felt by all. McGee understands the concept of moving on and likes Ziva, she seems to like him too which is nice, plus the fact that she isn't used to crime scenes has him hoping he'll soon be losing the Probie tag. He wants to bring it up, but it never seems like the right time to rock the boat.

Thoughts of rocking the boat brings McGee back to his current problem. He pokes his head around the corner again, but Gibbs and Tony are still sitting on the jetty. He'd come outside looking for Tony, to get him to help prepare for what Ziva had informed him they were doing tonight, but now there's no way he can walk out and act all normal. They'll know he's been hiding back here watching them and that just makes him look creepy. He wonders if something really bad has happened, because back when Kate died Tony hated that Gibbs was being nice, but he doesn't seem to have any problem with the extra nice now. Judging by what he'd seen already, this must be something really, really bad if…

"What you doing Timmy?" Tony's voice surprises him.

McGee walks out from his little hiding place to face both Gibbs and Tony who had walked back up the jetty in the snow without him realising. Looking between them, they appear normal. Tony using his name is odd, but that's their cover, his brother wouldn't be calling him Probie would now would he?

"Erm Ziva needs help getting ready for tonight." He stretches the truth slightly, ignoring the fact he had obviously be caught spying.

"Well, we best get this show on the road then," Tony looks to Gibbs who nods and pats his back and the three of them together make their way back into the house.

.

"_You in Tony?"_ McGee's voice whispers in his ear.

Tony would answer him, but he's too busy falling through the window, landing on some prickly house plants to utter anything other than a swear. Nevertheless Tim isn't clued up on his predicament and his tinny voice comes through the earwig calling his name and over and over again.

"Yes!" He finally snaps, his voice sounding like a sonic boom in the quiet house.

"_Okay, well hurry up, it's freezing out here."_

Tony rolls his eyes. After the day he's had he shouldn't even be in_ here_, but it's his job and Gibbs is counting on him so he's doing it. Inching his way carefully around the dark house planting bugs in every room, of which there where a lot, his thoughts go back to this afternoon on the lake. The good news is he feels a little better than he did at the beginning of the week, Tony only wishes he also didn't feel quite so stupid. "Young" was the actual word Gibbs had used when they'd eventually gotten around to talking. Sitting on the jetty in the freezing cold, a light snow falling around them, Gibbs had sat there with his arm around him like it was nothing unusual and basically told him it was okay to be sad sometimes.

The idea that he is simply missing Kate, the only woman he's ever let get close without having slept with first, seems so obvious now it's been spelt out to him. Tony hadn't considered it before, he just always thought he _had_ to smile, joke and be happy because that's what everyone needed from him. What he needed hadn't ever been a concern, not for his dad and certainly not for Wendy. Therefore it never crossed his mind that the reason for his recent bad mood had little to do with his own predicament of a few weeks ago and everything to do with grieving the friend he saw brutally killed in front of him last May.

Gibbs had called him emotionally young and assured him he shouldn't be scared of forming the same kind of friendship he'd had with Kate with Ziva. It was weird hearing from him in a capacity that didn't involve barking orders or telling offs. He actually sounded like a more focused Ducky. That bit of mixed up reality didn't take away from his point though. It was true there were only three woman in his life he'd ever let get to know him, really know him. His mom and Kate both left him permanently, Wendy… she didn't leave him so much as throw him away. But how Gibbs could see this when he couldn't was still a mystery, one Gibbs wasn't willing to reveal since when Tony asked he simply smiled softly and pressed his lips to Tony's forehead in a light kiss, tightening the one armed hug.

The memory of that, which happened only a few hours ago, has Tony blushing furiously. He has one more room to bug and intends to do it quickly and get out, having had enough of today and looking forward to going to bed, even if that bed's a clunky little race car too small for anyone taller than 4 foot 10. He's on his way out when he notices a door in the hallway that clearly doesn't belong to another bedroom. Testing the handle he discovers it unlooked and opens it to discover a narrow wooden staircase leading down into the dark.

"Basement." Tony grumbles, remembering another Christmas and another basement. "Great."

"_Tony you okay?"_

"Fine McGee," Tony answers him starting down the stairs, slowly. "The Millers have a basement."

"_You bugging that too?"_

"Well McGoo, I thought it was worth a look." Tony answers mockingly.

Breaking out his pen light Tony shines it around the room, boxes are stored up in every corner and with the amount of dust it looks unlikely anyone is going to be coming down here to have a conversation.

"There's nothing here," Tony whispers to McGee, "Stay sharp I'm coming out."

Walking back towards the stairs, he gets one foot on the first step. There's noise behind him, Tony spins around, but it's too late. Last thing he feels is a hard smack to the back of his head and his world blacks out before he hits the floor.

.

"Tony?" McGee nearly shouts down the microphone hooked up to his own earwig in panic.

He heard Tony's groan then a loud bang, and now he doesn't hear anything.

"Tony!" He tries again, but rears back in pain immediately when a feedback loop screeches down into his ear.

The earwigs been destroyed and he knows it, which means someone else is in the house - with Tony. Jumping up from his hiding place in the treeline McGee vaults over a log and runs through the snow. He can hear voices, a woman screaming and picks up speed, but arrives skidding into the driveway seconds too late, only catching a glimpse of a strange car pulling away.

Out of breath and fumbling for his phone McGee tries to get a call through, but the frantic beep, beep, beep of his cell instructs him of the lack of signal. Stressing he considers taking the Millers car and making chase, but changes his mind and makes a mad run towards the house and then the lake.

.

Gibbs and Ziva are sitting at the table, Gibbs never liked this sort of thing when he was married and Ziva's plastic strained smile is making his fake laughing sound even worse. This is why he usually puts DiNozzo forward for this stuff if he can. He excels at undercover work and is sure the Commander's wife would be just as flirtatious with Tony as she is being with him. Commander Miller doesn't seem to care that his wife is obviously coming onto him, which makes him question the true relationship between this guy and Fornell's witness. Wouldn't be the first time the FBI did a half assed job on background.

Mrs Miller has her foot stroking his leg under the table again and Gibbs is about to say to hell with it and go with Ziva's earlier plan of interrogating them when McGee bursts through the door.

"Tim?" Gibbs gets up.

McGee pulls to a halt, out of breath, snow covering his shoes and pants likes he's been running and stares at the Commander and his wife.

Then his gaze flicks to him, "Boss we have a problem."

"Boss?" the Commander repeats immediately.

"It's a nick name," Ziva rushes to cover.

"No, it's not, Timothy McGee NCIS," he shows the couple his badge.

"McGee?" Gibbs orders immediately.

"Boss they have Tony," He explains desperately.

"Who?"

"I don't know," McGee shakes his head, takes a quick breath but continues before Gibbs can shout at him, "I heard at least two men talking and a woman screaming. They drove off."

"Oh my god," Mrs Miller jumps up from her seat.

"Who is she?" Gibbs snaps his glare onto the couple at the table. "Who IS SHE?!" He shouts when they refuse to answer.

The Millers' share a panicked look before Commander Miller speaks up.

"She's a friend," he says carefully, "needed somewhere to stay for a while."

"This friend just so happen to be a witness for the FBI? One who they are looking for?"

The Commander nods regretfully and Gibbs slams his hand down on the table, walking away.

"Boss they put her in the car." McGee adds.

"Tony?" Gibbs turns all business nodding at McGee for making the right call in revealing their cover.

Ziva is already gathering her things behind him, getting ready to make a move even before McGee can tell them he thinks whoever has the witness has Tony too.

"I checked the house, he isn't there. I lost him boss,"

"You did good," Gibbs assures him. "Let's go."

Ziva follows him and McGee out the door, but Gibbs stops her on the threshold.

"Stay here."

"What, but Gibbs-"

"We can't leave them," Gibbs eyes the Millers', making it clear without stating it verbally that everyone here is in danger given the last house this witness stayed in blew up and he certainly wasn't leaving a Probie behind to protect two people from the mafia.

She eventually agrees looking worried, adding softly, "Find him."

Gibbs nods. That's exactly what he intends to do.

.

Tony doesn't stay out for long, but unfortunately he comes to with a splitting headache.

"What's going on?" he asks before he can acclimatise to his surroundings.

There's a cotton bag covering his head, and his hands are tied behind his back, someone not very big is dragging him across the cold floor.

"Get up!" a woman's voice shouts.

She sounds strung out and panicked. Tony's mind eventually catches up to him.

"Emma Watson?" He asks, voicing the name of the FBI's missing witness, the one they are looking out for.

"Who are you? Who sent you?" She kicks him, which Tony takes as a yes.

"I'm Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS. The FBI sent me to bring you back to New York." He rushes out between pain-filled gasps.

"No!" she screams at him delivering another kick with her heeled boot. "Get up!"

She pulls on his shoulder, which he must have hurt when he fell because the pain is immeasurable and Tony sees he has little choice but to comply. They walk clumsily up the stairs, Tony trying to convince her of who he is all the way, but it's no use. Miss Watson is too far gone in her hysteria to listen and continues to push him until they are outside in the cold.

She removes the bag from his head and he gets his first real glimpse of her. She's a little rougher looking than her photo. But it's definitely their witness, he can see that even through the blurry vision. He can also tell she'd holding a gun on him.

"Now wait." He tries to talk to her but she orders him to shut up again.

"You killed Bill, you're not killing me too." She snarls at him.

Bill was the man she witnessed the murder of. He was also her boyfriend if the report was to be believed.

"I didn't I'm-"

But he doesn't get to finish his sentence, before he knows it a car pulls up and several men get out pointing yet more guns at them. Tony knows from the mix of Russian and Italian accents, these guys are not the FBI and sighs. He's suddenly glad he and Gibbs had the chance to talk by the lake earlier. By the looks of it he won't get the opportunity again.

One of the burley men, easily 6ft 4 and the width of two of him takes Tony by the shoulders, manoeuvring him towards the car. He hisses but doesn't let on that his shoulder is bummed. Emma screams and kicks, seems to be her thing, but has no chance against two of them. Another big guy is standing on Tony's other side, just waiting for opportunity to knock him out most likely. He wasn't going to give them that. He needed all his faculties to get him and the witness out of this, or at least to stay alive long enough for Gibbs to find them. McGee must know something's up by now. He's forced in the car, next to Emma who's looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and frustration. He wants to tell her this is partly her fault for continually kicking him instead of listening to him, but knows now's not the time.

The drive isn't a long one, though it's dark and the driver seems to know the road well enough to speed like Gibbs so it's hard to judge just how far they've gone when they pull up at a deserted pier. One of the big men with a gun yanks him out the car and Tony immediately falls to his knees. He's still a little disorientated from the blow to the head earlier, but gets up as quickly as he can. It's not quick enough though apparently, the guy who yanked him takes his gun and smacks him around the head with it, sending him crashing back down again. His vision is swimming when he manages to open his eyes, so definitely a concussion and Tony tries his best not to pass out or throw up.

Emma is suddenly in his field of vision and they are being walked, in his case dragged, towards the piers edge. His hands remain tied, putting extra pressure on his shoulder and they are both turned around to stand side by side facing out over the water. A slight breeze hits him in the face, refreshing instead of freezing. It's a lovely night. The sky is clear and he's reminded of another time so very long ago, when his world had seemed small until he sat out here to stare at the stars. Back in the present a light snow is still falling like it had been earlier and the magic of Christmas is buzzing in the air. Ironic that tomorrow will be Christmas Eve, usually one of Tony's most favourite days.

One of the men says something in Russian. He hears a gun cock and holds his breath, truly afraid now. Normally he'd make a joke, to distract and disarm but its taking all his effort to remain standing since that last blow. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, eyes barely able to stay open. He doesn't have much left, but never one to say die, just as the crack of the gun fills the air Tony knocks into Emma sending the pair of them falling into the icy water below, the shot missing them by mere inches.

He hits the surface water hard and the cold nearly kills him instantly with the shock. Powering lower and lower with the force of the fall Tony kicks wildly to stop his momentum, but it does little to stop his progress. His last thought is of last year's Christmas pancakes with his team and the warm fire he'd miss sitting next to tomorrow.

.

"NCIS!" Gibbs shouts jumping out of their barely parked car as it draws into the pier.

They'd followed the road until it opened up and McGee, having remembered the car's licence plate had managed to get a signal on his palm pilot and find the cars location via its tracking system. Thank god for technology and clueless old school mafia types he guessed. As soon as they cleared the trees and entered the dock side they'd seen the car parked by the water and the men surrounding it.

Needless to say they aren't expecting them and try to make a run for it, but him and McGee round on them so they wisely give up.

"Where are they?" Gibbs shouts gun trained on them, fear bleeding into his words.

One of the guy's laughs, "you're too late" he says with a thick accent.

Cuffed and secured by McGee Gibbs runs to the edge where the men had been standing, looking down he can see bubbles rising from the water and his heart sinks. Suddenly a body resurfaces spluttering and screaming for help. Gibbs runs and drops down onto the lower jetty McGee on his heels, the sounds of sirens from the local P.D zeroing in on their location.

Gibbs grabs the woman and pulls her out, "McGee we need blankets!"

"Boss where's Tony?" McGee asks panicked.

The woman's coughing. "He was with me, they were going to shoot us, but he knocked me into the water."

Gibbs quickly hands the woman to McGee who walks her to the paramedics who have just pulled up, then without a second thought or warning he jumps in.

"Boss?!" McGee runs back to the edge.

Gibbs is underwater when he hears McGee's shout. The cold's unbearable and already he can feel his muscles seizing up. Its murky making it hard to see the lower he gets and he can feel his heart beat slowing. Fear is creeping in, but he pushes on, going further under, refusing to resurface for much needed air. Just when he feels he can stay down no longer a solid object swims into view, Gibbs grabs hold and hooking his arms around what definitely feels like a human body kicks his way to the surface.

Breaking through the water with a sound as loud as a thunder clap he doesn't need to stretch his vocal cords to call for help. McGee and the paramedics are already waiting for him. They take Tony's body and drag him out, with Gibbs shaking off the help they try to offer him. McGee stays by his side and they stumble down the jetty together, the Paramedics racing ahead with Tony already on a stretcher between them shouting for warming blankets.

"Sir, you coming?" They address Gibbs hurriedly after loading Tony in the ambulance with Emma, in a hurry to shut the doors.

"Boss, go I've got this" McGee pushes before he can answer, "FBI are on their way I'll be fine."

Gibbs nods, unconventional as it is to leave a Probie in charge of a scene McGee's proved himself many times to be capable. He nods and climbs on the bus that pulls off at speed heading for the nearest hospital.

.

Gibbs fetches a coffee and closes his eyes, resting his aching head against the wall. The hospital has given him clean dry clothes and a dose of antibiotic to ward off infection, but none of that is keeping the cold dread out of his heart. He's been standing in the exact same spot for the last three hours in the family waiting room for ICU and so far has heard nothing positive. Tony had held on in the ambulance, but so far as he knows is still yet to wake up. They were warming him up with special blankets the last time he was updated and placing him on a vent to take the pressure off his scarred lungs. The extra damage caused by the double pneumonia from when he had the plague creating more complications than he could ever imagine.

He's tired, sore and his heart is aching even more than his head.

"Jethro?"

Gibbs blinks into his coffee. Now he's hearing things…

"Gibbs?"

"Duck?" Gibbs looks dazedly at the small doctor standing before him.

"I came as soon as Timothy called, how's our boy?"

Gibbs blinks again, looks around to see if anyone else is going to jump out at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you could use some company." Ducky nods with a smile, ignoring his confusion. "Fornell was most accommodating and let us catch a flight with him. We've hired a car and Mr Palmer and Abby are driving on to the house. I didn't want them hanging around here being worried when I'm sure Ziva and McGee could use the company too."

Gibbs smiles warmly, amazed at the thought to be honest. He certainly never expected this.

"He hasn't woken up yet." He says, his elation sobering significantly, "I can't get a straight answer from anyone, but he was under water nearly 10 minutes in total."

"Jethro the important fact is he's still breathing, the cold would have slowed his heart rate, preserved his brain function. Anthony's a fighter, we should have hope. What's more concerning is the state of his lungs."

"I told them about the plague," Gibbs chuckles, though with a hint of sadness, "should have seen their faces."

"I can imagine. Trust Anthony to be entertaining people even when unconscious." Ducky pats his arm, "I have Doctor Pitt on standby to consult, though he's passed some notes onto me so I shall go and find out what's going on immediately."

"DiNozzo family?" A nurse walks through at that very moment.

She isn't a doctor so Gibbs takes that as a positive sign as he approaches her with his best no nonsense glare in place.

"Here,"

"Are you Gibbs?" she asks and he nods, her face breaks into a warming smile. "Tony's awake, he's asking for you."

No words had ever sounded sweeter. Not being one to smile often, when he did it was big and Gibbs didn't even want to stop the silly grin taking over his face. He turns to Ducky who is looking very relieved and they follow the nurse out. They walk down the long the white corridors of ICU, passed the closed rooms containing beds surrounded by machines. Passed crying relatives and others trying to make the best of the season by putting decorations up and brave faces on. At the very end of their journey another nurse is waiting by a curtained drawn cubical and Gibbs flashes back to a not so dissimilar scene from three years ago.

_**2002 Bethesda hospital**_

_Gibbs had just put the phone down to a Thai receptionist, who, poor woman, had been the undeserving target of the majority of his anger. Ducky was still waiting in the room when he returned, checking Tony's vitals._

"_Any change?" he asked without expecting much._

"_He's hanging in there," Ducky grimaced, "He was lucky."_

"_Not what I'd call it." Gibbs growled throwing himself into a chair next to Tony's bed._

"_They could have killed him Jethro" Ducky admonished him. "Is Vivian okay?"_

"_Oh yeah she's fine. DiNozzo took the most of her mistake."_

"_Poor boy does seem to get more than his fair share, is his father coming?" Ducky asked hopefully, settling himself on the opposite side to Gibbs, Tony lying prone between._

_Gibbs gave him a look, "What do you think?"_

"_Oh but Jethro, how could he not? Tony's going to pull I'm sure, but it'll be a long journey he'll need some support at home."_

"_He's got us Duck," Gibbs tried to circumvent._

"_It's not the same as his father though-"_

"_That man has no right to call himself Tony's father," Gibbs snapped. "And Tony doesn't need that abusive bastard anywhere near him. In fact if he showed I'd kick him out myself and break his jaw for good measure."_

"_I sense I'm missing something." Ducky spoke frankly._

_Unable to keep himself in check Gibbs told Ducky exactly what he was missing, every dirty detail of how Mr DiNozzo is a self-serving bastard who puts his only son last every damn time._

"_Ah Duck." Gibbs buried his face in his hands feeling, sounding and looking defeated, "What am I doing?"_

_It was clear Ducky was shocked by the information he'd just revealed, the content and because he was normally so careful about keeping personal things private. Gibbs didn't know what had gotten into him, other than the fact he was standing at the bedside of a kid he'd known only a year and yet with the pain he was experiencing just from looking at him with all the machines, wires and meds being pumped into him he felt as devastated as if Tony had been with him all his life._

"_You're DOING what any parent would do, you're worrying about your own," Ducky finally spoke and Gibbs looked up at him, eyebrow quirked upwards. "You've been different this past year… and that's a good thing, he's changed you, made you grow up a little bit. I'm proud of you Jethro for taking on the responsibility. It's a good thing you're doing." _

.

"Not doing such a good job now though am I?" Gibbs says out loud, causing Ducky to give him a curious look.

He shakes off his concern, nothing to worry about. Ducky doesn't question him further so Gibbs can only assume he's seeing the same similarities to last time that he is. He doubts Ducky's forgotten that night either. They approach the curtained off bed and expecting the image of a pale young man barely awake Gibbs is taken aback by the smiling face staring back at him, its owner sat up in bed, the only obvious injuries being one arm supported in a sling and a few nasty scratches over his face.

"Boss! Where you been?"

Gibbs is speechless.

"My boy you're looking very well, how's your breathing?"

"Ducky?" Tony's smile falters slightly, but not so anyone except Gibbs would notice.

He can see now that the smile is hiding a lot of fear and worry and acting on instinct steps forward, seeking to offer assurance anyway he can.

"You feeling alright?" Gibbs catches and holds onto Tony's out stretched hand, squeezing it tightly.

"Feeling great!" he responds on autopilot.

"Anthony," Ducky 'tisks' him.

"I do." He insists, "Can we go?"

Gibbs is about to tell him to not be so damn stupid, but the doctor enters the area before he can open his mouth.

"Yes I believe you can."

"Really?" Tony questions.

Gibbs wants to ask if the doctor's insane, escaped from the third floor mental ward maybe, but Ducky manages to ask the question in a more delicate way, one more likely to get a polite response.

"Are you sure he's suffering no ill effects, giving his lung situation?"

"Ducky you're obsessed with my lungs," Tony forces the smile to remain in place, even though it's clear the effort is becoming too much, "I feel great."

That's the second 'great' in as many minutes, which means he's really not feeling well at all.

"Great is a little premature Agent DiNozzo, but your test results are positive."

"Positive?"

"As in good," the doctor corrects, "no sigh of bacteria in the lungs. The fact that you lost consciousness quickly was actually a good thing. It prevented you from breathing in too much of the water. The cold kept your brain on ice as it were, so the prolonged time in the water did no permanent damage, some memory loss and difficulty may arise over the next couple of days, but you should be just fine. In short you're a very lucky young man." The old doctor looks over his glasses at Tony beseechingly.

"Wow, I've never been called that before."

"You're saying he can go?" Gibbs asks astounded, letting Tony's words go over his head.

"Ah no, I'm keeping him in for tonight, in the step down ward. Get a full night's sleep without problems and I'll sign you out tomorrow." The doctor smiles, signs a form the nurse hands him and walks off before anyone can ask another question.

.

Late the next day, which just so happens is Christmas Eve, Gibbs, Ducky and Tony pull up outside the lake house where the others are still staying. Surprisingly Fornell is the first to greet them.

"You're still here?"

"Don't you watch the news Jethro? Airports are shut due to the snow."

Gibbs looks at him blankly. "I've had other things on my mind," and he's gaze drifts to Tony still sleeping in the car.

"Don't worry, I'm out of your hair now. Have an emergency transport back to Washington this afternoon. Can only take the witness though, no room for extras. You'll have to wait until it clears I'm afraid." Fornell smiles, adding with a wink as he walks away to his waiting car with a wave, "Judge says you can stay in his house though 'til you do,"

"Merry Christmas Tobias" Gibbs shouts sarcastically at his retreating back.

Fornell drops the wave and flips him the bird. Shaking his head Gibbs turns around to help Tony out of the car. His damaged shoulder still resting in the sling, adding the concussion from multiple blows to the head, which he neglected to mention when asked by the doctors what happened, he's still delicate on his feet. They only found out about the numerous hits because when he and Ducky asked, Tony couldn't lie to them so easily, it hadn't changed the docs mind about releasing him today though.

"I'm okay boss," Tony protests as he takes his arm anyway.

"Shut up will ya DiNozzo." Gibbs struggles with him through the deep snow which is now almost burying the house.

They only take a few steps before Abby comes running out, screaming their names and hugs them both, effectively stopping any furthering arguing.

"We've been so worried." She turns and takes Tony's other side, walking him inside.

As soon as they're through the door McGee, Palmer and Ziva are in their faces, crowding round to help the invalid in and Gibbs lets them take him. He's heard enough of Tony's moaning the whole night he stayed with him in hospital. Wonderful thing about concussion checks, they prevent _everyone_ from getting a moments peace.

"Wow, sweet," Tony exclaims, pointing at the decorated Christmas tree in the corner.

"Isn't it cool," Abby exclaims, "Ziva knew how to cut down a tree,"

Palmer and McGee look away, Gibbs can't help but laugh.

"Didn't think you did Christmas?" Tony says to Ziva, walking over and admiring the size.

"I don't celebrate personally, but I am open to, what is the saying…when in Rome?" She smiles lightly.

The whole lot of them walk off into the kitchen, still talking. Ducky manages to sneak up on his left.

"Did I just scare the mighty Gibbs," Ducky teases.

Gibbs refuses to acknowledge he might have jumped, but he couldn't deny his mind had been on other things as he watched the gathering of young people swarming around acting like it was normal to be stranded out in the Hamptons when they all should be at work in Washington. He still couldn't believe they'd bounced back yet again. It seems that no matter what life throws at him Anthony DiNozzo Jr will always come out fighting. One of his many admirable qualities, one Gibbs envy's to be truthful.

Tony wears his heart on his sleeve a lot of the time, which sometimes puts Gibbs in that awkward position of either ignoring it or doing something about it. He's always been uncomfortable with emotions and it really annoys him how easily DiNozzo deals with them. Or doesn't deal with them as they case maybe sometimes, but then that's where he comes in isn't it? Tony's chosen him to be the one that sees all that, all his joy and all his pain, their little moment by the lake being a case in point. Anyone else might have pulled away, or shaken off the gesture, but as soon as Gibbs wrapped his arm around Tony's shivering body he laid his head down on his shoulder in a heartbeat. To this day he still doesn't know what he's done to earn that position of trust, but he does know he is damn proud to have it.

The evening moves on and passes swiftly with everyone catching up, having fun. Gibbs actually finds it relaxing listening to the nonsense chattering surrounding him, it beats the all-consuming silence he's used to at home. Nevertheless, midnight is fast approaching and before long its time to call it a night. With one look, each of them retires to wherever they plan on bedding down for the night. They need their sleep. If the airports aren't open tomorrow it's going to be a bloody long drive back.

By 11:47pm Tony is the only one remaining, slumped on the couch yet again, throwing a ball in the air, letting it rebound off the glass doors and travel back to him. He and Abby both want to stay an extra day since there's no work until Monday. Gibbs has told them he'll think about it if they shut up and go to bed, but so far Tony's going for noncompliance on that one.

"DiNozzo I'm not carrying you to bed," he says bluntly when the ball's missed on its return because Tony's dosing off right there on the sofa.

"You remember a couple of Christmases ago, when I was kidnapped by that guy Oliver?" He says quietly, without opening his eyes.

Gibbs nods, Tony hadn't remembered much at first, but after a couple of nights the memories resurfaced, from the moment he walked into Gibbs' house to find Oliver, right through to waking up alone and drugged in the basement. It's given him some serious nightmares over the years.

Gibbs' gaze snaps to Tony suddenly in understanding and Tony opens his eyes and looks up at him, nodding to confirm he's correct in his assumption.

"I know it's not a big deal, but after the plague and then Kate," he says softly, resolutely staring at the floor, "Staying in jail the other week. Being _here_…" he continues without need of explanation. "With everything that's happened, it's a given. Everyone will hear me. I don't want anyone to hear me, they'll think…"

Gibbs doesn't need him to finish, he reaches into his bag and throws something thin at Tony's head.

"Ow, oh hey" Tony goes from insulted to excited in seconds. In his hand he holds a DVD, not just any DVD either, _his_ DVD. "Really?"

He has an honest smile on his face now and Gibbs glares at him in answer. It's nearly midnight, nearly Christmas day, so he thinks - what the hell?

"You gonna watch it with me?" Tony asks him cheekily.

Gibbs rolls his eyes and looks longingly at the stairs. He isn't as young as he used to be. Sleeping in the hospital chair last night has taken it out of him ashamedly enough and he needs sleep. Whether it's for the journey home, which is looking less likely now, or simply to try and survive Christmas day with no basement to escape to and a house full of people. But turning back to see DiNozzo giving him his best wide eyed innocent pleading look, he sighs.

Nodding Gibbs reluctantly drops onto the couch next to Tony, who jumps up to put the movie on and is back within a blink of an eye waiting for it to start. He thought it was amazing that they'd survived yet another year nearly, getting through a bunch of tough situations by the skin of their teeth, but what's really amazing is that somehow, in some way, Tony has had him watching the same god damn movie every Christmas for the past four years. And just like each and every one of those four years, by the end of the opening credits Tony is leaning on him, fast asleep.

.

A/N: So? How did that go? I really want to know… this one just about killed me to write in a week :D

See you tomorrow for yes you guessed it, Christmas 2006! Ttfn…


	10. 2006

A/N: Thank you all soooo much for the wonderful reviews and encouragements over the last week. I hope to get back to each of you personally, but if I don't for a while just know I _really_ appreciate it;D

And happy NCIS day US peeps!

_**Season 4 Christmas 2006**_

Tony woke up choking on what he could only assume was his own salvia. He couldn't breathe, his nose felt clogged, his eyes watered and he couldn't take a breath without feeling the rattle in his chest. He coughed, spitting up a tissue full of brown gunk before he felt the air enter his lungs in one hit causing yet another coughing fit. Spent, but breathing he fell back with very little grace.

How did he end up like this? He'd been so careful recently. Taking vitamin's, eating healthier, remembering to zip his coat up outside… working overtime for the director, living two life's, foregoing sleep completely... Oh. Looked like he _hadn't_ been doing so good in regards to his health. Figures. Well his intentions had been good, surely that should count for something?

A hacking cough provided his answer. Apparently not. Air catching in his throat again initiated a coughing fit so bad it brought tears to his eyes. Looking around he groped for the clock on his nightstand. Only four o'clock. He'd taken himself back to bed at lunch time, having woken up feeling a little achy after spending last night out with Jeanne. Now only a couple hours later and he was struggling to breath. He knew what this meant. Hospital. He didn't want to go. They'd get the long pointy needles out and start jabbing him for tests, taking blood and inserting I.V's, then they'd want to start injecting things back into him, which meant more needles, more drugs to send him loopy. He didn't want any of that.

Another round of coughing had him sitting up, doubling over and choking within an inch of his life. This wasn't fair, not by a longshot. Just as he thought the worse was passing Tony felt the shaking on the inside becoming more obvious on the outside and he knew he had only seconds before he broke down completely. He couldn't do this, not again. It was all just too much.

He reached out and snatched up his mobile, pressing his speed dial unthinkingly.

"Boss," Tony choked out when the other end was picked up after only one ring.

He couldn't get any other words out, the air in his bedroom had turned to soup and all he could do was tighten his grip on the sweat dampened bed sheets while listening to the soothing voice on the other end of the line telling him to calm down and take small breaths. Seconds later his bedroom door opened and in walked the voice from the other end of the phone.

"What-" he gasped, "how'd - get here-" he managed in a rush, "-so fast?"

"I was just down stairs," Gibbs told him in the same soothing tone, pulling him fully up right to lean his head against his shoulder, rubbing his back to encourage the crap out that was clogging up his lungs in the first place.

Tony eventually coughed up what felt like half a lung, but was only a gooey mess the size of a marble in the offered tissue. Nevertheless he felt better for it.

"Huh?" He finally managed to respond, squinting up at Gibbs with a confused frown.

Gibbs sighed heavily, sitting down on the bed looking concerned he reached up over his head to flick on the light. Tony blinked a few times, adjusting to the sudden brightness, but it didn't take him long to realise this wasn't actual his bedroom.

"This is your house." He said, not sure what to think, "Boss?" He looked beseechingly at Gibbs.

"Yeah?" Gibbs asked when he didn't continue.

"How did I get here?"

.

_**24 hours earlier…**_

"Feels good to finish early doesn't it?" McGee leaned back in his chair.

"Don't jinx us McGoo," Tony slung his pack on his shoulder tiredly, "been a long week, gonna be a long weekend, have a good Christmas."

Gibbs walked in as he walked out.

"DiNozzo okay?" he queried surprised by his sudden exit, though there had been a lot of them lately.

"Long weekend apparently," McGee shrugged and said his goodnights too.

Gibbs nodded and wished him a merry Christmas. They were off rotation now until Wednesday. McGee was preparing to visit with his mom and step-father in Norfolk, Ziva had already left to spend the Christmas season on vacation somewhere hot given they hadn't had a break a long while, what with bombs on golf courses, dug up corpses, serial killer wives and killer Humvee's. They all needed a break and luckily the Director saw fit to give them one.

As for Tony he didn't know what his plans were, but Ziva's parting words to him the other day were giving Gibbs cause for concern. She'd mentioned how tired Tony had been looking lately, that he'd lost weight and she was worried about him. Just last week she'd been researching Y-Pestis relapses, which had given him plenty of sleepless nights. He didn't think Tony would hide anything like that from him, but then there was a nagging doubt in his mind that Tony _would_ try and protect him. With him looking like he hadn't slept in a week and then spending every spare minute he had sleeping at his desk Gibbs couldn't deny something was wrong. Packing up his things he saw he had only one course of action that would put his mind at ease over the holidays.

.

"Boss what you doing here?" Tony looked surprised when he opened the door to his apartment.

"Checking that you're okay," Gibbs got straight to the point.

"Why would you think I wasn't?" Tony giggled nervously.

It was his tell. Whenever Tony lied to him, and it was just him mind, he'd let loose this nervous little giggle which made him sound like a bashful sorority girl. Letting him know that answer wasn't acceptable Gibbs scanned the apartment for evidence that something was wrong. Everything looked in place, just like it had the last time he'd been over and the time before that. In fact Tony's place always looked like it had never been touched. The only thing that ever moved was the fish.

"You seeing that girl of yours over Christmas?" Gibbs changed the subject, forcing a casually tone.

Tony looked panicked.

"How'd you?-"

Gibbs gave him a look, "Tony," he said with a knowing smile.

Looking embarrassed Tony answered honestly, which was a good choice, "Er, actually no she's working pretty solid."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, she's a… a doctor actually," he smiled, as if the notion of him dating a smart girl was ridiculous.

"A doctor?" Gibbs queried anyway, wondering if Tony was ready to share more.

Gibbs never asked about the one-nighters, or even those that lasted a date or two. In fact the only time he'd ever gotten involved with Tony's love life was when he broke up with his fiancé and when they crossed the line from ex to stalker.

"Yeah," he said shyly, head ducking, eyes focused anywhere but on him.

It was obvious he was embarrassed and normally Gibbs wouldn't press. If Tony had finally met someone who meant something to him he didn't want scare him into backing off, but on this occasion Gibbs needed clarification for a whole different reason.

"At university hospital?" He asked enquiringly, forming a theory now he had more information. Tony looked panicked again, telling him he was onto something... "Ziva told me you were getting calls from Uni Hospital, you told her it was test results!" He's angry now, angry and happy, but he can't show the latter as well.

"She was being nosey" he shrugged.

"She's worried about you!" Gibbs mentally adds 'knucklehead', "She thinks you're having a plague relapse!"

"Ha that's ridiculous." Tony choked on his own words under his glare and then looking scared added, "Uh sorry boss didn't mean to worry you too."

Gibbs kept up the glare, eyes narrowed.

"Can I offer you a drink?"

"These extra jobs for the Director? You're not stretching yourself too thin?"

Now he knew the hospital calls were from the girlfriend he felt free to address the whole sleeping at his desk issue.

"Kind of hard to step out now," Tony put up an invisible barrier between them, his tone suddenly cold, "You left, I had little choice."

The jibe hits him hard, reminding him of the responsibilities he shook off when he left for Mexico, but Gibbs doesn't let it show.

"You've been falling asleep at your desk a lot."

"Just tired boss," he shrugged again, again looking everywhere but at him.

"If you say so," Gibbs said carefully, measuring his own tone to match Tony's.

Somewhere they'd taken a misstep. Tony was closed off now, unwilling to even look at him. He'd thought they'd moved on and put what happened over summer behind them but it appeared there was still some bridge building to be done. Sensing now is not the time Gibbs walked to the door.

"Sure I can't offer you that drink?" Tony stopped him just as he reached for the handle, sounding sorry.

He obviously felt bad, but Gibbs knows he really shouldn't and he also knows he should get going.

"No, you need sleep, you look awful." Gibbs told him straight, "Get to bed."

It's an order and Tony takes it as one.

"Okay," He smiled warmly, taking it as the caring it's intended to be. "Night boss."

.

His phone is ringing and actually wakes him up. Checking the time, squinting at his watch, it's nearly 5am on Saturday. He isn't on call, so if this is Jenny he's going to tell her to stick it – they worked last Christmas.

"Gibbs," he barks.

"Is this Mr Gibbs?" A strange voice asks.

Gibbs frowned at the phone. "Yeah?"

"Anthony DiNozzo-"

"Where?" Gibbs cut her off.

"Sorry? I-"

"Where, which hospital?" Gibbs interrupted her - he already had his shoes on and was running out the door.

"Oh, Georgetown-"

"I'll be right there," Gibbs hung up, got in his car and drove off.

Walking into the busy hospital entrance Gibbs stormed up to the receptionist and gave them Tony's name. He's directed to a waiting area, where amongst the many walking wounded Tony is sat with a bandage on his head and tissue to his nose.

"What happened?" He groaned with relief, happy to see him conscious and without any life supporting machinery around him.

Tony looked pleased, but also a little sorry to see him there.

"After you left I popped out to fetch dinner, apparently I didn't make it."

Gibbs glared.

"I passed out, sorry boss."

Gibbs bit his lip to prevent the expletive from coming out, instead he settled for a growl and felt Tony's head for fever.

"I'm really am okay, it's just I came in an ambulance and don't know what happened to my wallet or anything."

"You mean you passed out on the street and were lucky somebody bothered to even call an ambulance!" He started off in a normal speaking tone, but somehow ended up yelling.

Tony took the telling off well, too well.

"What else?" He snapped.

"Nothing?" Tony looked hopeful he'd buy that, but gave up quickly and sounding defeated admitted "I might have a cold."

Might wasn't cutting it, he was burning up. Gibbs glared.

"Pneumonia, I might have pneumonia. But I don't have to stay," he hastened to add, "they gave me these medicines and all I need is bed rest."

Tony showed him the contents of a paper bag the hospital had given him. Gibbs stared at it a minute, before making his position clear.

"Come on," Gibbs pulled him up, "You're coming to stay with me."

Tony smiled at him dazedly, "You sure Colonel Mann won't mind?"

Gibbs stopped them half way between the waiting area and the exit, glaring at him until the _got to be drug induced_ grin disappeared.

"None of my business boss." He agreed immediately and Gibbs can't help but laugh.

.

_**Present…**_

"So I'm delirious then?" Tony asked after being informed all that happened yesterday.

"Yep" Gibbs nods without hesitation, still sitting with him on the bed.

Taking that in Tony coughed again and again couldn't stop, his eyes watering. He grasped at Gibbs' shirt and tried to pull himself up, but his fingers felt numb and he couldn't get purchase. Panicked beyond all belief Tony thought he really would die this time, until strong arms took hold, pulling him up. He coughed some more, spitting up brown gunk, then like a miracle air entered his lungs, it felt wonderful until it instigated yet enough coughing fit.

This one lasted a good five minutes, but it did lessen and eventually cease. Spent, but breathing steady again, Tony fell back against Gibbs' chest with very little grace.

"I can't do this again." Tony whispered brokenly, resolutely keeping his eyes screwed shut.

"Yes you can." Tony felt Gibbs take hold of one lax hand and squeeze his palm. "I've never lied to you."

The conviction in those words was more than enough to break him. He was scared and exhausted from fighting for every breath. Tony turned his face into the shirt that smelt of the familiar sent of sawdust and old spice. If he had any defences left he'd question why the smell of his boss comforted him so much when he couldn't even remember what his own father smelt like. He wanted to blame it on sleep deprivation from so many late nights recently, but truth was his father was the bastard that never got close enough for Tony to draw comfort from, let alone get used to his scent.

Strange thing was he was currently lying to the one man who meant the world to him, the one person who would stand by him and, like he'd just proved, drive across town at five in the morning for him. This couldn't go on, Gibbs needed to know the truth about what the Director had him doing, had recently encouraged him to do. He was falling in deep. Jeanne was a mark not a girlfriend, but the lines where blurring, but if he told Gibbs he'd put an end to it, an end to Jeanne. He didn't want that. But he didn't want to keep lying either.

Tony tried to stay calm, but in the end he couldn't stop himself from laughing at the absurdity of his choices, because it was a laugh or cry moment and Tony would rather laugh every damn time. Gibbs squeezed him tighter, if that was even possible and Tony wondered if he'd misread his giggling as the onset of hysteria. But then he reminded himself this was Gibbs, and Gibbs saw everything… usually.

"Come on," he loosen his hold and offered a hand, "if you feel up to it Abby will be here soon,"

"Abby?" Tony questioned, getting himself under control.

"Yeah and Ducky's popping by later too."

Tony let Gibbs help him out of bed.

"Why?" He asked as together they hobbled towards the guest bedroom door.

"Well its Christmas eve Tony, they'd kind of like to see you." Gibbs grinned slyly.

DiNozzo couldn't believe he'd done it again, managed not to miss Christmas by the skin of his teeth. Since joining NCIS he'd been drugged up, kidnapped twice and stranded in Rock Creek Park, was any Christmas going to go smoothly for them? With Gibbs quitting and him having to take over a very hostile team it had been an emotional year and he guessed he was lucky any of them were together to celebrate this year to be honest. The job offer from Jenny was still hanging over his head, but it was moments like this, when his plague scarred lungs reminded him of past mistakes that he knew he'd made the right decision, no one _but Gibbs_ was capable of looking after him in this sorry state. And besides, with all the shit they've been through these past five and a bit years what else could possible go wrong? He guessed he'd have to wait until next Christmas to find out…

.

A/N: shorter one this time, because I need a break from the epicness of last week lol, written in one day (today) so hope it's still a good one, cheers :D See you next Tuesday!


	11. 2007

_**Season 5 Christmas 2007**_

"Agent DiNozzo! Call for you."

"For me?" Tony stepped back into the Roxboro sheriff's office, "Probie tell Gibbs not to leave without me."

McGee stared at him for a second, looking momentarily put out before giving him the stink eye and stropping off. Tony didn't care. He took the receiver from the receptionist excitedly. There were only a handful of people he'd given the office's number to for contacting him and all those were case related, which included a hot sounding nurse from whom he'd taken a preliminary witness report over the phone before leaving NCIS. Tony smiled slyly to himself. She was on his to do list - for statement taking he'd reiterated when he'd said those exact words to Gibbs in the car earlier, on the way down.

Naughty thoughts in mind his excitement went into overdrive as Tony put on his best 'come hither' voice and suavely spoke into the handset, "Hello."

"_Expecting a woman were you Junior?"_

"Dad!" Tony shot up from his casual lean against the front desk and nearly knocked in to the pregnant woman trying to squeeze passed behind him. Mouthing an apology he turned his focus back to the phone. "Dad how-"

"_Listen junior I've been trying to get in touch, your office told me where to find you."_ He said with confidence, as if they talked all the time.

Tony listened to his Dad's excitement as his own dropped away. He tried to take it all in but the voice and call reminded him of when he'd been beaten within an inch of his life by some very unhappy sailors and ended up in ICU. Gibbs had had to inform him that his dad was getting married again and wouldn't be coming to see him anytime soon. That hadn't surprised him in the least, unlike this phone call…

"Look I gotta go," Tony worked up the courage to interrupt and his dad scolded him for the act.

His words and tone remained playful enough, but there was a hint of annoyance behind them that Tony knew well, and always made him obey no matter what.

"DINOZZO!" Gibbs bellowed stomping back into the sheriff's station looking as pissed off as he'd ever seen him.

The rare occurrence of Gibbs coming back in to fetch him didn't even register with Tony, who turned around looking like a deer caught in the head lights. Trapped between too overbearing authority figures he determined the most danger came from the one standing in front of him, if his dad wanted to lay him over his knee he'd have to come find him first, but Gibbs was standing right there and Tony wouldn't put it passed him to try.

"I'll call you back when I'm home Dad." Tony said quickly hanging up the phone and running out into the cold like his ass was on fire.

He quite literally jumped into the car, not wasting another second and was so preoccupied with making it safely with his dignity in tact that he completely missed the fact that Gibbs hadn't moved from the doorway. He also failed to notice the look of total shock on his face.

.

When they pulled up at the crime scene forty minutes later Ducky was already outside the old farm house waiting for them.

"No Palmer?" Tony asked as he stepped out the car into the snow and helped Ducky with the gurney he was struggling to take off the truck.

"No," Ducky accepted his help, failing to hide his surprise that DiNozzo was assisting without being asked. "I gave him the day off, Christmas Eve and all."

"You're a good man Duck," Gibbs said as he passed them, his own feet crunching under the fresh fallen foot deep snow that was covering the majority of the un-cleared driveway and surrounding grounds.

It had been seven hours since the body was discovered, five since they'd left Washington to travel here, yet there was barely a sign that anybody had been anywhere near the house recently thanks to the continuing snow fall. A testament to the weather not being their friend in this investigation.

"Hey boss how come you never give us Christmas Eve off?" Tony called, jumping out the back of the truck with the gurney.

Feeling the issue needed addressing immediately Gibbs about faced and stood in Tony's personal space, glare fixed and ready. Tony comically stepped back, the amusement he'd been displaying moment's ago reined in to what was appropriate at a crime scene.

"Never mind boss," he said shyly and quickly.

Gibbs continued to glare remaining stony faced and still, long enough to make Tony feel uncomfortable, before nodding and walking away, his own small grin of amusement hidden from view, knowing without looking that Tony wouldn't breathe out until he was gone. He didn't relish picking on DiNozzo, but past experience had taught him if he gave him an inch he really would take a mile, and Tony was too good of an investigator, had too much potential to be the best, for Gibbs to let him get away with even the smallest infraction on the job. Off the job was a completely different story, and thankfully so far they'd managed to avoid analysing why that was, though the question was bound to be asked one day.

Gibbs let himself into the house first, allowing the others to gather their things and follow his lead. Walking through the open front door the silence was the house's most notable aspect. Gazing through into the living room he can see the brightly decorated Christmas tree, next to the log fire, dominating one corner of the quaint, simply furnished room. The lights had been left on, making it an odd countenance to the corpse lying on the floor of the opposite room.

Gibbs about faced and approached the woman, lying face down on the kitchen floor. Bending down he snapped a glove on one hand when out of nowhere a brown blur came charging towards him, a distressed barking issuing from its drooling mouth.

"Heel Barnaby!" A higher than you'd expect voice commanded the averagely sized mutt that came to a skidding holt in front of the body.

Gibbs stood up slowly, taking it easy on his knees and gave the sheriff's deputy in front of him a level look.

"Sorry Agent Gibbs, he's been out of sorts since we got here."

"Understandable," Gibbs said straight faced, with almost no inflection in his tone.

"You NCIS guys sure picked the wrong time to visit Roxboro," the deputy continued offering his hand, introducing himself as Wiley. "We've already had a pretty bad storm and there's word another moving in fast."

"This where you found her?" Gibbs ignored the inane comments on the weather.

"Beth found her, she works at the clinic," Deputy Wiley explained, "nearly left she did too but Barnaby here was kicking up a storm so she took a closer look." He bent down to stroke the dog. "Sheriff says to give you any help you need?"

Gibb sighed and coming to the conclusion Wiley, as well meaning as he seemed, probably couldn't help with much reluctantly stood aside to point at Ziva who was struggling bringing their equipment in from the car. Wiley nodded and ran, leaving Gibbs just a little amazed and nearly knocking Tony over on his way out.

"You're welcome!" Tony shouted to the oblivious deputy.

"So what do we know?" Gibbs asked staring between the body lying face down on the kitchen floor and his assembled team.

"Well this is Mrs Mathieson," Tim pointed at the dead body, looking up only briefly from his notes. "Found dead early this morning by a friend. Married a year to Petty Officer Mathieson who is currently missing. No kids."

"Friend happens to be a very nice sounding nurse." Tony added with a grin, which was dropped the second he took in Gibbs' glare.

"Time of death?" Gibbs barked.

"Last night, around midnight judging by her temperature," Ducky said before Tony could close his mouth and open it again. "But it is cold, so could be early this morning. More tests are required I'm afraid and though I don't usually give cause of death in the field, since this has been quite the trip I will say the gunshot wound to the head is a likely candidate."

He packed his things away carefully and stood in front of Gibbs with a grin that scarily matched DiNozzo's from previously when he was talking about the nurse.

"She was having an affair." Tony said wearily, having moved into the adjoining dining room and back again.

"Why do you always go to the sex place?" Ziva reared on him.

"Well maybe because I'm a man," he replied just as irritably, with a childish sneer in her direction that she then matched, "but mainly because she wrote her husband a letter."

Tony thrust the so called communication in his face, Gibbs had to squint and hold it at arm's length to read it.

"It's says she was sorry, she didn't mean to hurt him, the usual stuff." Tony summarised for him, adding a shrug of indifference for good measure.

"The usual stuff?" McGee parroted and Gibbs had to wonder what was going on with all the copying today.

"Written many of these, have you Tony?" Ziva smirked and walked off, not giving him a chance for rebuttal.

"Okay so married a year, Petty Officer gets home to confront his adulterous wife, things get out of hand, then what?" Gibbs did his own bit of summarising to get them all focussing back on the case and off each other.

"Petty Officer gets mad grabs his gun, gun goes off accidentally or on purpose - to be determined by Abby and Ducky -" Tony smiled at Ducky, who was leaving to fetch something from the truck, "and boom! He's in the wind!"

"That simple is it DiNozzo?" Gibbs was commenting on the theory as well as his acting out of the scenario.

"If he did kill his wife he could be anywhere by now." McGee added, looking petrified by the notion they could be looking for a needle in a hay stack.

"Not anywhere," Ziva reappeared from outside, "His truck is still parked outside, if he planned to leave town surely he'd have taken it."

"Does the wife have a car?"

"Yes," Tony said and patted his coat down, pulling out a mangled piece of paper from one breast pocket, "Er it's a white Oldsmobile, but according to the witness who found Mrs Mathieson the reason she came by was to pick her up to collect it from the garage in town."

"If Petty Officer Mathieson killed his wife early this morning and left on foot, he has not gone far in this weather." Ziva stated.

McGee looked puzzelled."But we're miles from everywhere, where would he have gone?"

"If this was an accident he may not be thinking clearly." Tony added.

"Which means we don't have long, Ziva-"

"Call the garage, confirm the car is still there," Ziva walked off taking out her phone.

Gibbs looked to Tony and McGee.

"Really?" Tony whined, staring back at him.

"What?" McGee glanced manically between them.

Tony heaved a heavy sigh when Gibbs softened his look a modicum. "Get your thermals and snow shoes on Probie, we've going walking."

Gibbs waited until he'd gone, McGee following him out to the car to get their things before letting a troubled mien slip in reaction to the forced 'nothing's bothering me' attitude. Tony had been quiet on the car ride over. He didn't know if it was because of the unexpected telephone conversation with his father weighing on his mind, but it was weighing on Gibbs' mind that was for damn sure.

After six years working together Gibbs didn't doubt for one minute Tony knew exactly where he stood in his esteem, despite his tendency to be a complete bastard sometimes. That however didn't preclude Tony's need for attention and validation, something he whole heartily blamed DiNozzo Sr for. Like him Tony was loyal, knew right from wrong, and though not the brightest bulb in the box, he knew where to find answers and was _always_ willing to learn. Those were skills you couldn't teach even the brightest Honour Student or child prodigy. The fact that his father had made such a terrific kid feel like a failure all his life Gibbs found deplorable, and now after years of absence he calls him out of the blue? And not just at the office either, he tracks him down, to a crime scene, in a town they've never visited before today? Something wasn't right.

Years ago, when Tony received the email telling him his father wouldn't be in the country for Christmas, Tony later told Gibbs he believed it was sent because he'd tried to reach out to his dad a couple of months before. It was after he'd been released from hospital, having survived his first serious injury received while working at NCIS that he'd tried calling him but to no avail. The Christmas email was a blow off. The 'Stop calling I have a new family now' kind.

Since then Tony had been in many life threatening situations, nearly dying from the plague being the most notable and Gibbs had expected to finally meet his father then, but no. He didn't show, call or even send a card. Now five years later he was tracking his son across the country for a chat? Gibbs didn't think so. Back then he'd decided to leave it alone, he was here for Tony if he needed him, but wasn't going to get involved beyond that. His track record with his own father wasn't exactly a shining example of how parents and their children should communicate, so frankly didn't think he had much he could offer as advice on the matter. Now though, if Senior so much as came within feet of Tony, Gibbs wanted to know about it, because there was no way he was going to let that man use and abandon him like he'd done so many times in the past. Gibbs was a bastard, no doubt. But he was also loyal and protected his own. Tony was one of his now and if anyone tried to hurt him, didn't matter who it was, they'd better be prepared to answer to _him_.

Feeling more confident that whatever Senior wanted they could handle it together Gibbs stepped outside to send his boys on their way. They had a Petty Officer to find if they wanted to make it home before midnight tonight.

.

Tony and McGee left as per Gibbs' orders to search the surrounding grounds for any sign of the Petty Officer. On a normal case that wouldn't have been much of a problem, knock on a few doors, canvas for witnesses, check traffic cameras etcetera, however the Mathieson's lived in an old farming house, nothing grand, but most definitely secluded. No neighbours, no witnesses, no roads to even have traffic cams. With the town over 20 miles away and the nearest house being three miles away, if the Petty Officer really did leave on foot last night in a state of shock there wasn't much hope for him, Gibbs had basically sent them out looking for a body.

After nearly thirty minutes searching and finding only a few nearly snowed over footprints headed in the direction of the next field McGee came to a standstill and looked forlornly back at the house in the distance. "We're not going to find anything out here."

Tony heard the pessimism loud and clear, but declined to respond. He was scouting the outer edge of the field, dirty muddied up snow crunching under his shoes as he used a stick to move debris, looking for anything that could be tied to PO Mathieson. He'd stayed purposefully quiet after leaving the house. Trying to deflect Gibbs' sly glances had taken up a lot of his energy and now out in the cold, sun steadily setting he was using even more. Tony had nothing left to prevent his mind from being preoccupied by his father's out of the blue phone call. The familiar ache in chest, the one he got whenever any of his family got in touch, had returned with a vengeance and it physically hurt enough to make Tony wish the day would just end already. McGee had noticed his off behaviour he was sure, being as it was Christmas Eve and all the way down in the car he'd talk incessantly about Christmas Movies, cookies and presents. But he was so busy doing his Smurf impression right now Tony doubted an issue would be made of his sudden sombre mood, and anyway why would he care that he was upset about something? They were still on rocky ground thanks to his blown undercover assignment months ago, which was still too fresh in his mind to leave him despite making the decision to stay at NCIS, with the people who he considered to be his real family. The thought about family brought his mind full circle back onto his dad and Tony found he was completely fed up with the whole business.

"Stop McWhining and get over there and check those bushes." Tony pointed to the far edge of the field where the property ended and the woods began, getting his mind focused back on their case.

McGee sneered at him at the prospect. "No, you do it."

"I'm-"

"You're the senior field agent," McGee mocked tiredly. "Are you ever going to stop pulling that card?"

"Not on your life McProbie," Tony grinned cheekily at him, channelling some of his earlier light-heartedness.

McGee rolled his eyes, giving up, and walked off into the trees muttering to himself, Tony laughing at his indignation all the way. Given the attitude he was getting from McGee lately he could have had a strop and done it himself, but frankly he wasn't pissed off enough to do that. So instead Tony went back to poking things, a minute passed and McGee was still mouthing off in the bushes and Tony was still chuckling at him then Tim fell suddenly silent.

"McGee?" Tony called out enquiringly.

There was a rustling behind him and Tony spun on the spot. He hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten all of a sudden. There'd been a bright sun shining a moment ago and now there was nothing but a haze of red peaking over a hill off on the horizon.

Something rustled in the bushes behind him and Tony whirled back around. The temperature had dropped a few degrees in the last couple of minutes, along with the sun clearly. Damp was creeping through his clothes, touching his cold clammy skin underneath the five layers Gibbs had insisted he wear and snow was soaking into his shoes. Though they come prepared for the weather, they hadn't exactly equipped themselves for roaming fields.

"McGee?" Tony called again. "Tim?" He whispered quickly after, this time more urgently and walked over to where he last saw him.

Pushing through the bushes and a few trees Tony found himself in the middle of a mini forest, unsure of where to go next. There were no footprints except his own, no obvious path, but most notable of all no McGee. He must have gotten turned around somehow, and swiftly twirled in a circle taking a few steps in a different direction when he heard another crack.

Tony froze, stopping dead mid stride to listen for more movement. Nothing happened and the noise didn't repeat, so taking the pressure off his left foot Tony lifted it to continue forward when he heard the crack again. It sounded more like a creek, but he didn't have time to analyse the noise as he fell, feeling the sensation of air whooshing past his face as he plummeted through the snow.

When he hit the ground it was with a resounding thud and a groan. Blinking through the pain all Tony could think was that he was glad it was his butt that hurt and not his head. It took more than a minute for him to gain some clarity about what the hell had just happened. Feeling the floor, picking up a broke piece of wooden it became clear he'd landed on a pile of broken slats and directing his gaze upward he could see the very faint light of what was left of the day peeking through that had to be a hole at least fifteen feet up. The light suddenly disappeared, blocked by a solid object looming over him.

"It's amazing you didn't break your neck." McGee said, offering Tony a hand.

"Tim?" Tony squinted at him, still a little flummoxed.

"I know what happened to Petty Officer Mathieson," McGee answered blandly not explaining anything of what Tony wasn't asking.

He let McGee pull him up to a standing position, his butt ached miserably, but Tony gave it a quick rub and mentally shook off the pain. Cryptic statements aside, from first impressions alone he could tell they were in a bit of trouble here. Dusting himself off he followed McGee around a corner, trying to visually take in every aspect of where they were. Underground obviously given his fall and lack of snow on the ground, aside from what he'd dragged in with him, but if that hadn't clued him in, the tree roots hanging from the ceiling where a dead giveaway.

It had to be a cave of some sort, manmade judging from the wooden posts and supports, but nothing Tony would like to try climbing on. The ceiling was pot-marked with several holes the likes of the one he'd fallen through only most still had their slats still in place, letting only a slither of light through and, most importantly, air. He was so busy looking up that Tony bumped straight into McGee when he stopped, knocking his torch out of his hand. McGee bent to fetch it and upon picking it up highlighted what it was he'd wanted him to see.

The body was bent almost in two and yes, low and behold above him was a hole with broken slats. He was most certainly dead judging by the angle of his neck alone, but not for long given his rather insect free condition, blood was dried on the floor around his head, creating a sickening red river that flowed down towards them. Tony knelt next to him and took out the picture of their missing Petty Officer, putting them side by side.

"Yep, that's him all right." Tony sighed, "What killed him do you think?"

"I don't know you're the senior field agent." McGee snarked.

Tony closed his eyes and counted to three. He'd admit he gave as good as he got on any normal day, but today he didn't have it in him to do either.

"Funny Timmy," Tony growled, "I'm trying to ascertain if we should be worried there's a murderer down here with us."

McGee softened at his tone. Bitchiness didn't come naturally to him, so whenever he tried and failed to hit the mark he tended to overcompensate. Tony hoped to teach him what was a good balance one day, as soon as he knew the answer to that himself.

"I don't think so, the covers are unstable and hidden by the snow, I'm betting he fell in the same way we did." McGee said honestly, all evidence of his grump gone for now.

"Hmm," Tony visually examined him for injuries. "So I'm not the only one lucky not to break my neck. Where_ is_ here anyway?"

The quick change of subject broke the temporary tension between them and as intended got them focused on their current problem at hand.

"I think this is an old prohibition tunnel." McGee was looking around.

"Really?" Tony said distracted, checking his phone. "We going to find crates of whiskey down here? Gibbs will be pleased."

"No." McGee gave him a long suffering look, "but during the civil war tunnels were built to transport supplies and enable escape, I bet it links up to an abandoned train line somewhere, in the prohibition the tunnels were reused to supply contraband to speakeasies, maybe the Mathieson's farm house used to be one?"

Tony gave McGee a look this time, one that said _'Really?'_ "They teach you this stuff at MIT." He mocked aloud too.

"High school history Tony," McGee drawled at him.

"I never liked school," Tony sniffed, not admitting that it was school that didn't exactly like him.

"You do surprise me,"

"I can't get a signal." Tony ignored him and snapped his phone shut.

"Yeah me neither," McGee did the same.

"So what we going to do?" Tony eyed the hole the petty officer had fallen through, like his it was completely inaccessible from the ground.

"I think they were intended as vents, not entrances." McGee explained and shone his torch light down a brick walled tunnel to their left. "If I'm right about the tunnels there should be an entrance either inside or near the house, which is in that direction. We could follow it and walk out?"

Tony looked down the small tight, dark tunnel, his chest constricting at the thought. "Really?"

"Don't be such a girl."

"That's an insult to girls." Tony took out and tried his cell again.

"Exactly." McGee smirked, walking off.

"What?" Tony snapped and frowned.

"Come on DiNozzo, I want to be back for Christmas dinner." McGee shouted, already making his way down the tunnel.

Left alone, with nothing but the low glow of his phone to keep him company Tony saw he had little choice, but to follow. He snapped his phone shut and quickly jogged to catch up with him.

.

"Where are they?" Ziva stood at the sink, looking out the frosted up window.

Gibbs was sat nearby at the kitchen table, going over the incident reports provided by the Sheriff concerning the many call outs to the Mathieson's home in the past year, since their arrival in Roxboro County. He'd been so involved in putting together a picture of their marriage that he hadn't even noticed how dark it was now. Looking up and out the window he saw what Ziva was seeing, and felt his gut twinge ever so slightly. It was snowing, quite heavily and checking his watch confirmed what he feared, that the boys had been gone for more than an hour now. Gibbs wasn't prone to worrying, but he had to admit to having a spark of doubt of whether they were okay.

Putting his coffee down he stood up and joined Ziva at her side, starring out into the early dusk that was settling over the vast land surrounding the farm house. He didn't want them rushing back empty handed, but he also didn't want them freezing their asses off and getting lost in the dark either.

"Well I'm done here." Ducky announced coming in through the front door, snow blowing in after him. "Any more will have to wait until we are back. Any news on when we can leave?"

"Am afraid, doctor you won't be." The sheriff joined them, appearing from somewhere at the back of the house.

Ducky removed his coat and warmed himself over the freshly boiled kettle as he poured himself a cup of tea. It wasn't the usual custom to conduct a preliminary autopsy examine in the van, but Gibbs had wanted answers sooner rather than later and thankfully Ducky obliged him.

"Why?" Ziva was the first to ask the obvious question.

"My men have been called out to an accident out at peak point. Avalanche. Roads blocked." He answered with a southern drawl DiNozzo would have been unable to resist mimicking.

"Well surely there's another road out of town?" Ducky suggested sanely, his tone making his desire to return to Washington clear.

"Not with your truck out there." The sheriff dismissed immediately.

He had the sort of authoritive tone to him that Gibbs bet people rarely disagreed with. Him included.

"We'll have to keep the body in the truck until we get back to Washington." He said without care or feeling, right now getting back in time for Christmas was the least of his concerns.

The sheriff looked surprised he wasn't giving him more of a fight. "I can offer your people some place to stay the night-"

"We'll bunk here, its fine." Gibbs nodded to the sheriff, they weren't going to be gate crashing anyone's Christmas when there was a perfectly good empty house where they could stay.

"Okay, if you're sure," The sheriff placed his hat on his head ready to leave.

They shared a brief, but meaningful look, which confirmed Gibbs and the sheriff knew exactly where each of them was coming from.

"If we can offer any assistance, which the emergency, do let us know." Ducky offered, drinking his tea and settling at the table.

"Will do," The sheriff nodded and then walked out the door.

The snow blew through the house in a flurry in the short time the sheriff took to leave. Upon closing the door everything calmed and the two NCIS team members were left to contemplate what that indicated for the two still out there.

"Ah well I can think of worse places to spend Christmas I guess." Ducky added cheerily, breaking the tense silence which had befallen them, indicating the snowy tableau outside, not noticing the look Ziva and Gibbs shared. "Though Abigail will be disappointed, I believe she was waiting for our return before leaving to wish us merry Christmas and watch a film with young Anthony… where is he by the way?"

"He and McGee went out tracing the Petty Officer." Ziva said quickly.

Gibbs rolled his eyes, predicating what was going to be said next.

"They're out there?" Ducky's voice rose several decibels. "Jethro! Anthony shouldn't be out in this, remember last year?"

"What happened last year?" Ziva latched onto that.

Gibbs winced.

"Tony got sick over the holidays while we were off rotation, the extra work for the director had gotten on top of him. He ended up with pneumonia." Ducky filled in helpfully much to Gibbs' annoyance.

"How come I didn't know?" She snapped, looking directly at him.

Both Ducky and Ziva were glaring at him for different reasons and if this was a normal day he'd glare right back and walk off, but aside from being trapped in the large, yet somehow still pokey farm house together, the worry was increasing, making it difficult to keep up his stoic attitude.

"It wasn't up to me to tell." It was only because he remembered her being the one to unintentionally prompt him to check on Tony in the first place that he was offering that much. Gibbs then turned on Ducky impressing his current concern with just a look. "And I haven't sent him out in this Duck. They've been gone a while."

"Two hours to be exact," Ziva barely let him take a breath, "Gibbs permission-"

"No," Gibbs cut her off, turning his stare back on her. "I'm going," he said with finality, looking between the two of them sternly.

"Gibbs you cannot go alone." Ziva called to him when he walked off to fetch his coat.

"I won't be alone." He said stepping towards the door.

Gibbs whistled and the Mathieson's dog came running. He shook out his hand producing a lead and attached it to Barnaby's collar.

"Gibbs!" Ziva protested hands on her hips.

"Stay with Ducky." He pointed meaningfully, impressing on her exactly what he needed her to do.

When she drew her lips into a thin line he knew he didn't need to tell her why he was making her stay. Ziva knew enough to understand why they couldn't leave the crime scene unprotected with their suspected murderer still unaccounted for.

"I'll call." He flashed his phone at Ziva, ordering her to be prepared to do whatever might be necessary.

And then Gibbs opened the door onto what on any other Christmas Eve would be one of the most beautiful nights he'd seen, but right now all Gibbs could see was the cold and dark world where, out there somewhere, were two of his Agents and a desperate man who had mostly likely just shot his wife. Barnaby barked once and ran ahead, pulling Gibbs out into the snow.

.

They were walking down the tunnel, squeezing through inch by inch in the tiny space that definitely wasn't built with tall people in mind and there was still no end in sight. Granted it had only been about 20 minutes since they fell through the snow into this mess, but Tony had been getting increasingly edgier with every step and was steadily driving McGee mad.

"The ceiling look okay to you?" Tony asked him with real concern.

"Ceilings fine," McGee repeated, for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Do we have enough air?"

"It's a tunnel Tony, there's a breeze." He sighed, wafting his hand through the air, feeling the slight breeze that was blowing towards them.

"Yeeah, but what if that's not enough?"

"Tony, will you calm down?" He pleaded, utilising what was left of his patience. "What the hell's the matter with you anyway?"

McGee turned on him, he suddenly remembered when he'd asked him that before, and realised this was exactly like a few months ago when they were trapped on that ship together.

"Oh gee nothing Tim, just impending death by suffocation, being buried alive maybe," Tony reeled off sarcastically, "you know how it goes when you fall into hundred year old tunnels!" He stopped, and looking him dead in the eye took a deep breath, "We're going to die down here aren't we."

"We aren't going to die down here, you're always saying Gibbs will find us" McGee pointed out theatrically, turning back around and continuing down the tunnel, "He will, we just have to find a way out first."

Was the tunnel getting smaller, or was it his imagination McGee asked himself when his head brushed against a beam. Tony's panic was obviously catching he thought as he dismissed the idea. They needed to keep moving and find the way out, not succumb to mind games.

"You wouldn't be saying that if we were three stories up teetering on a ledge." Tony pulled himself together rather quickly, which had McGee rolling his eyes at the utter normalcy of it all. One thing he had learned from working with Tony over the years was to grow a thicker skin and take a lot of what he said with a pinch of salt.

There was a beat of silence before the muttering and exaggerated panicky thoughts started up again, spewing out of Tony's mouth. McGee stopped abruptly and again turned to face him. Tony was watching him carefully, a look in his eyes that suggested he was trying damn hard to hide something.

"You're scared?" McGee blurted, unable to control his reaction to the real fear he could see in his eyes.

"Scared?" Tony puffed, suddenly pretending to look nonchalant, whereas seconds ago he was near freaking out.

McGee just stared at him, raising his chin to give him a pointed look.

"Fine I'm scared," he snapped with a _'so what?'_ kind of tone, "What sane person wouldn't be with rocks balanced precariously over their head?"

McGee rolled his eyes at the melodrama, but unlike Tony, he couldn't keep up the mean act for long, he actually found himself feeling sorry for him.

"No you're really scared. You claustrophobic Tony?" McGee asked sincerely, squinting to see if that changed his view of the unusually nervous looking man before him.

He knows Tony gives _him_ a hard time with stuff like that, but that's just who Tony is. He jokes and teases and sometimes he crosses so many lines it's difficult to understand what the hell he's thinking half the time. But despite all that, McGee knows it comes from a good place and Tony really is hard to stay mad at, though that was a confession he intended to take to his grave. The point was McGee knows _he_ himself isn't like that. He can't do 'mean' and still keep it borderline friendly, when he tries it comes off blotchy and somehow he's always managed to cross the line instead of balancing on the edge like Tony often did. As much as it irked him, McGee knows he's much better at being 'nice'.

"Tony, come on… tell me, no one else is here." He pointed out, knowing from past experience that's the mostly likely time Tony will ever let his guard down and be serious.

McGee waited patiently maintaining eye contact and making it clear by his stance in the cold damp tunnel they wouldn't be going anywhere until he answered the question. He had a fleeting thought they might be standing there all night, given Tony's penchant for stubbornness, but then after taking a deep breath Tony appeared to calm.

"I know what it feels like not to be able to breathe Probie," he spoke sincerely, referring to his many recent issues with his plague scarred lungs, "I don't want to feel it again."

His eyes are glassy and looking anywhere but at _him_. This isn't a joke. This is 'make it or break it' time. Not like months ago on the black ship, where his nervousness seemed to be more about attention seeking than actual fear. This, what he was witnessing here, was on a whole other level.

"Okay, okay" McGee reacted humbly to the rare honest and vulnerable display, "but we aren't dead yet"

His words echo those of a few months ago too and he has to wonder if this is what Tony is going to be like now. After the plague, contacting pneumonia twice in the last year, Jeanne leaving him, Gibbs nearly drowning, has Tony taken one knock too many? Sighing he patted Tony's arm and indicated they should keep walking, but as they continued to move further along the dark tunnel with no end in sight McGee couldn't help but think that out of all the times Gibbs had crept up on them in the office, if there was ever a time they needed him to show up unexpectedly it was now. He knew he wasn't a superhero, but McGee just prayed this wouldn't be the one time Tony's unwavering faith in the boss was misplaced.

.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs shouted into the darkness.

He'd been calling their names for the best part of ten minutes, giving up going for stealth once the sun fully set. The snow had fallen so heavily in the last hour any evidence of footprints was near impossible to find, he'd tracked their path across the field at the front of the house, but had hit a dead end. Pausing in his calls to listen for a reply, sighing heavily when, like all the other shouts, there was no response, he was preparing to try again when his phone rang.

"Yeah Abs," he flicked it open after checking the caller ID.

"_I haven't got a signal for either of them." _Her panicked fast talking voice travelled down the crackling line.

"I thought you said even if their phones are off you could get a hit." He snapped, his concern completely unmasked.

"_Yeah that's what so strange, it's like their phones are being shielded somehow… all I have is the last place they had a ping."_

Abby gave him the details and then threaten him, making him promise to find them.

"I will abs," He agreed with feeling before hanging up.

The Mathieson dog was whining at his feet. Gibbs knelt down and stroked his back. He was cold too, but Gibbs couldn't go back yet. Returning to the house without them wasn't an option, the missing Petty Officer didn't even factor into his thinking. Sticking his hand in his pocket Gibbs pulled out Tony's spare NCIS cap that he'd taken from his bag before leaving the house. He'd done all he could, now it was the dogs turn.

Bending down he let Barnaby get a good sniff, "Good boy," Gibbs patted his head, letting him run "Go get 'em."

.

"How much further McGee?" Tony whined from behind him as they entered another open area, with yet more grates dropping snow on them from above.

Since he'd had his little moment of open insecurity McGee had been treating him like a mental patient. Unfortunately Tony felt like he couldn't really argue with that assessment of himself. He certainly was acting like a nut job right now and wanted to kick himself for letting everything get to him. This stupid case ruining Christmas Eve, his father's phone call, the stinking weather, it had all just hit him all of a sudden.

"There's another cover up there, like the one us and the petty officer fell through," McGee pointed up excitedly.

"But no way to get up there," Tony sighed, giving up temporarily and taking a seat on the cold floor.

"The tunnel continues this way," McGee eyed him, catching on to his defeat instantly, "we really can't be that far from the house."

"So we continue down the cold small dark tunnel walking into god knows what, great," Tony mocked, with a shrug.

He was making it clear with his body language just how useless he thought this trek to be. The truth was the tunnel could go on for miles, might have nothing to do with the house, and who's to say when they get to the end the entrance won't be blocked? McGee turned back looking set to give him another pep talk. Tony wasn't in the mood to hear it though, and was all set to mouth off a hurtful remark that would ensure Tim wouldn't want to speak to him for a while when a dog barked.

They both looked up.

"Hey down here!" McGee shouted first at the grate in the ceiling.

"McGee!" Tony stressed, pulling on his arm and making a cutting motion with his hand over his neck. "We don't know who that is."

"It's a dog Tony."

"Exactly, have you never seen Kujo?"

"It's a dog," McGee rolled his eyes, "and that dog probably has an owner and they can go find Gibbs to get help." He reasoned, talking to him like he was all of two years old.

"Okay," Tony conceded, more concerned about escaping this horrible situation than dealing with McGee's attitude, although he could reason it was him who had the attitude and Tim was just reacting to him?

Tony shook his head, trying to clear his confusion. He just wanted to go home.

"Are you two are done chatting down there?"

The familiar voice came from directly above them and McGee and Tony looked up in hope.

"BOSS!" They shouted together, McGee in surprise, Tony out of relief.

"Boss the grounds unstable," McGee shouted back instantly. "But I think there should be an entrance near the house somewhere."

Tony was impressed with McGee's succinctness, his usual instinct to explain just about everything in detail foregone for getting the hell out of there. Gibbs swiftly disappeared and Tony held his breath, staying sat in his slumped position against the wall waiting patiently for what he hoped would happen next.

"There's storm cellar door fifty meters to your left McGee." They heard the boss shout a few minutes later.

"That must be it," McGee cheered, nodding convincing at Tony before forcing him to his feet and pushing him onward down the tunnel.

.

Gibbs unlocked the cellar style doors that like Ziva informed him when he called her were sitting not a 100 yards from the back of the house. He sent the dog down and only had to wait a few minutes before he came back, DiNozzo and McGee in tow.

Tony bolted out first and, intent on nothing else, walked right up to him wrapping his arms around his neck, not unlike the time when he'd shown up at NCIS after everyone believed he'd been blown up in an Israeli safe house. Like then Gibbs nearly fell back with the force this time too, but gingerly returned the hug nevertheless.

"Never loved you more, boss." Tony said as he pulled away.

McGee appeared next, much more calmly, forgoing the hug and greeting him with a relieved wave instead. "Thanks boss."

Tony was still hovering nervously by his side and Gibbs frowned at the jittery behaviour.

"You boys okay?" He asked cautiously, looking straight at McGee for the answer, since he knew he'd get nothing but deflection out of DiNozzo right now.

"We're fine" McGee nodded.

Gibbs glanced briefly at Tony, eyeing him with concern, before he turned swiftly back to McGee, who shook his head with a dismissive wave. Tony didn't appear to notice their exchange, worryingly enough, so deciding this was a conversation best had over a warm fire – with coffee - Gibbs pulled Tony along with him at his side and together the three of them, plus Barnaby, walked back toward the house.

.

"Welcome back," Ziva was trying and failing to appear nonchalant when they walked, or trudged more like, through the door looking cold tired and with only just enough energy to fall down on the sofa.

"What happened?" Ducky approached and took Tony to the side before he could get too comfy, intent on checking him over.

They were all in the same state more or less, but Tony knew it was pointless arguing.

"Found these two down a hole." Gibbs joked, his smile covering his real look of concern aimed at Ducky.

Tony saw it, but didn't react. He knew Gibbs cared, and sometimes he liked to tease him about not being the complete bastard he claimed, but other times, like now when he was really hurting, he was content to enjoy the fact someone cared about him in that way and leave it at that.

"But we solved the case." Tony flopped onto a table chair and Let Ducky remove his coat and undo his shirt, fingers too numb to work the buttons.

"Found petty officer Mathieson," McGee picked up the explanation when everyone waited and Tony didn't continue. "He's dead. Looked like he hit his head when he fell through one of the holes we fell through."

"I'll have to check the body." Ducky said distractedly, his concentration focused on listening to his heartbeat and Tony took another deep breath as ordered.

"In the morning Duck, he isn't going anywhere." Gibbs shut that down straight away, moving to stand at his side, looking down on him and Ducky.

"Fields full of holes Ducky. Whole area is unstable." McGee explained again when Gibbs stopped talking this time, which honestly they were all more used to.

"He okay?" Gibbs asked, changing the subject from the case to him.

It was Ducky's silence that was concerning him Tony guessed. The old M.E was never short of a story or three when putting his patients, living or dead, at ease.

"I take it we're not looking for anyone else?" Tony asked trying to get the focus off himself, breathing in and out again without Ducky doing more than pressing the stethoscope to his back, a testament to how routine this treatment was.

"No, while you were down a hole we managed to ascertain their marriage was not a happy one," Ziva spoke, but even without looking Tony could tell her main focus was, like the rest of the room, on him. "Evidence suggests they got into a fight, the petty officer killed his wife and made a rabbit for it."

"Run," all four men corrected her at once, creating some mild amusement.

Tony was the only one to actually laugh, "huh, well, karma does exist I guess. SO when we going home?"

Glances were exchanged by the three people who hadn't been out in the snow and cold for hours.

"We're not, roads blocked by an avalanche. We're staying here tonight DiNozzo." Gibbs broke the news, gentle as always

"Ah. Christmas in the murder house," Tony paused for thought, "fair enough."

"I better call Abby," McGee walked off quickly, not taking the news so well.

It was weird, tunnels and killer spouses didn't faze him much, but changing his plans at the last minute? Anarchy.

"You can do up your shirt, though I'd suggest changing into something dryer if you want to avoid another bout of pneumonia." Ducky said kindly, standing up from his crouch and putting his things away.

"Avoid?" Tony perked up.

"You're chest sounds clear, at worst you may get a sniffle, but I'd still like to keep an eye on you over the holidays."

"No ice lake skinning dipping." Tony nodded smiling, "Got it."

Gibbs smiled too, keeping back a much bigger grin and left to call the director. Ducky offered to fetch them all something to eat, and Ziva approached him with his bag, ordering him to get changed and with a suggestive glance offered to assist. Not feeling at his best, despite the good news Tony could manage nothing more than an embarrassed glance as a comeback and made his way upstairs to change.

.

_**Christmas morning 2007**_

Gibbs woke up suddenly, not having realised he'd fallen asleep. Looking around the memory of where they were returned slowly. He was sitting in the Mathieson's living room, next to the wood burning fire. Giving himself a minute to adjust to the strange surroundings Gibbs stared at the little lights on the tree and felt a touch melancholy. The Mathieson's were a young couple, chances were they could have worked out their differences or moved on, either way death wasn't the ideal outcome for them.

Gibbs internally laughed at the irony of his thoughts. He'd been suffering uneasy sleep of late, thanks to memories of plummeting into the Potomac haunting his dreams. When he was trapped in the car watching Tony swim away with Maddy to safety he thought that was it. He was done and could let go, but then he'd woken, flat on his back looking up at the sky, breathing, with Tony sat next to him looking scared to death, as well as exhausted and with what Gibbs was sure wasn't just river water trailing down his cheeks.

Remembering how upset Tony was then and comparing it to how he looked coming out of that tunnel reminded him of how much crap the kid had been through this year. Undercover assignments literally blowing up in his face, losing the love of his life to name but a few. Thankfully _this_ Christmas' events were mild compared to some over the last few years, so this case wasn't going to impact his own thoughts too much. Just another case to eventually add to the closed pile once all the evidence was confirmed and logged. What was concerning was _that _phone call. Gibbs still couldn't let it rest and he really wished it didn't bother him so damn much.

"God damn it, wasn't pneumonia last year enough?" he mutter to himself, running a hand over his tired eyes.

"I don't know Boss, enough for who?" Tony answered sleepily, shuffling into the room and dropping, blanket wrapped around him onto the sofa opposite.

"Why aren't you in bed?" Gibbs growled, glaring angrily at the intrusion.

"Couldn't sleep," Tony shrugged off the tone and look like always. "Didn't want to wake McGee. You know we really need to start petitioning for a better budget. Dead people's houses are not the best places to be after a traumatic day at work."

Gibbs stared at him. He knew he was being flippant. A good percentage of everything Tony said was either spoken in sarcasm or as a joke. It took skill to read between the lines to understand what he really wanted to say.

He studied him at minute, taking note of his body language, the arms wrapped tight around his middle, wide eyes that appeared a little too bright for the early hour. "You having nightmares Tony?" He hedged.

"What? No." Tony denied nervously, but that only confirmed it for Gibbs, that was exactly what was keeping him awake.

"What did your dad want," He pulled the bait and switch, swapping one uncomfortable topic for another in hopes of getting answers for both in the confusion.

"Hell if I know, he was telling me about something about some hotel, so he's probably getting divorced." Tony coughed and looked sadly at the table. "Be a shame, I actual liked this step mother."

"You've met?" Gibbs didn't mean to sound so surprised, but the early hour and his current worries were lowering his own defences a bit.

"Er yeah, about a year ago now." He looked suddenly embarrassed. "I told you about her remember? It was the last time I saw my father."

Gibbs thought about it for a second, he did remember now, but at the time they'd been stranded out in the middle of nowhere in another house, not so dissimilar from this one, trapped there by a hurricane. Given what else happened on that trip, which occurred immediately after his near drowning on the Potomac, he'd had plenty of other things on his mind at the time.

A light bulb went off in his head at that thought. Gibbs believed he'd discovered the source of Tony's nightmares and they might not be so dissimilar from his own.

"Well he'd said he'd be in touch," Gibbs attempted to keep discussion of Tony fathers civil, while not letting on what he'd figured out.

"Yeah," he agreed slightly less than enthusiastically, distracted gaze still aimed at the floor.

Tony was a good investigator. He'd worked out by now that he disliked his father immensely, but Gibbs wanted him to know that didn't mean he couldn't respect the fact Tony would never be able to cut the man out of his life.

"Something else wrong?" He asked forcing a note of query into his tone, knowing full well there was, but wanting Tony to tell him first.

"I-" Tony started, but couldn't seem to finish.

"I get it." Gibbs offered edgily, trying to push him into talking without saying the words.

"You do?" Tony looked at him, wearing an expression that clearly asked if they were talking about the same thing.

"Yes," Gibbs confirmed, though in reality he was only guessing.

"You mean you?"

It took a little longer for him to judge what the right answer would be here, but like always he went with his gut. "Even me, Tony."

Tony nodded, seeming relieved by those few words.

"I keep dreaming that I was too late, that I never saw the car go into the water and by the time I found you it was too late." He said quietly.

"Didn't happen like that." Gibbs answered succinctly.

He was a firm believer in not dwelling on coulda, shoulda, woulda. If he wasn't he probably wouldn't be here now, given how many 'what if' mistakes he'd made in the past.

"Okay," Tony agreed, like his statement could make the pain go away.

Gibbs only wished that was the case. But sensing Tony had said all he was going to about his nightmare this time around, these things needing to be dealt with in stages when it came to the pair of them working through personal issues, he changed the topic back onto something he believed, however wrongly, didn't involve him much.

"Whatever your father wants, I'm here for you, you know that right?" He asked.

"I know," Tony stared at his hands and breathed deeply, letting out a little chuckle, obviously embarrassed that his eyes were filling up. "Gibbs my father will never change." He sighed.

Gibbs sighed too, it was true he feared, but that didn't mean he didn't want it to be better for him.

"But it doesn't matter," he continued when Gibbs stayed quiet, letting him talk. "I've learnt to live with it. Like I've learnt that-" Tony paused and shuffled his feet, meeting his eyes briefly and then looking away again, suddenly nervous, "-you're all the father I need anyway."

It was said very quickly and Tony was on his feet within seconds of the words leaving his mouth, offering to make him coffee. Before he could even open his mouth he'd fled the living room in exchange for the kitchen.

Gibbs didn't move. Listening to the sound of water boiling in the next room he couldn't quite get his legs to work. His brain was using all his energy trying to assimilate what was just said. To gain clarity he stared out the window watching the sunrise, the bright yellow light reflecting off the fresh Christmas day snow. Though the surprising statement brought a smile to his face once the shock wore off, he couldn't help but feel slightly bemused too. Of all the people DiNozzo could have taken to, all the role models on offer he picked _him_. A man, whose life revolved around work, had trouble maintaining any long term committed relationships and a temper that made even the toughest marines run for the hills at the sight of him. It said a lot more about the good in Tony, than in him. That was when it clicked and, no longer confused over how he felt about hearing those few words, Gibbs stood up with ease, strolling off into the kitchen.

His mother had always declared it a terrible sin, but he didn't care, he knew what he was feeling was right. Gibbs was proud. Proud of Tony, proud of who he was and proud to think of him as his. Gibbs just hoped one day, sometime soon, he'd get the perfect opportunity to tell him.

_._

_._

_._

A/N: And of course he does – a whole year later! Yay!

So hey, another one done, sorry for lateness and hope it didn't suck, aiming for Tuesday for the next one;) wish me luck. All mistakes are mine ;) And the hurricane story mentioned is my own fic 'Impetus'. Research on these funny tunnels and American history are from Wikipedia EEk! I know I know, but its condensed easy to read there and since its a short story I'm hoping you can over look any issues and go with element of disbelief, thanks ;)

TTFN!

THANKS LOADS for ALL the reviews and support for that epic four parter the other week, the rest in between was def needed and I do appreciate everyone who reads these, reviews, faves etc. You're all fab ;D


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